Right Wing Nut House

Cue the trumpets! Play the fanfare! The March of the Cluebats has begun!

This week, we celebrate the induction of two totally unworthy, yet completely clueless denizens of the fever swamps of American politics into the Official Carnival of the Clueless Hall of Fame.

I always cry at these things…

As you might recall from last week, I listed the current Hall of Fame as it now stands:

1. Ted Kennedy
2. Hillary Clinton
3. John Kerry
4. Jimmy Carter
5. Pat Robertson

These members were chosen arbitrarily by me months ago based on the following criteria:

* Cluelessness demonstrated over a period of many years.

* A consistent track record of being clueless.

* Cluelessness above and beyond that demonstrated by others

* Originality and creativity in clueless behavior and statements.

As you can see, this is an extremely difficult Hall of Fame to crack. In short, the cluebat who wishes to be in the Hall must make every effort to be as clueless as possible over a long period of time and demonstrate that the cluelessness exhibited is far beyond what one would normally expect in another human being.

Many thanks to all our commenters last week as well as those who sent me emails. I appreciate all who gave a lot of thought to who should be nominated. We’ll start with the 2 finalists who didn’t quite make it this time.

HELEN THOMAS

This is what I wrote about Helen a few weeks ago after Richard Cohen referred to her as “indomitable:”

First of all, referring to Helen Thomas as “indomitable” is like calling a pig in a dress a prom queen. Thomas may be a lot of things – loud, obnoxious, disrespectful, kooky – but “indomitable” as a descriptive should be reserved for battleships, cancer survivors, and some race horses; not doddering old reporters who waddle around the press room talking about the glory days when Jack Kennedy prowled the White House looking for his next sexual conquest in the steno pool.

That just about sums up Helen’s qualifications for the Hall. The reason she didn’t make it this time is a question of notoriety. She’s a second tier cluebat. We will re-evaluate her status at the next Hall of Fame nominating session.

MICHAEL MOORE

First of all, I don’t think His Largeness could fit through the door of the Hall to give his acceptance speech so that kind of let him out right there.

Beyond that, Mrs. Moore just hasn’t been around long enough to garner the kind of clueless laurels our inductees have been able gather unto themselves over a period of many years. Mikey has been around a little more than a decade. Give him time - I’m sure with strenuous effort on his part, he has a real shot at making it some day.

With the preliminaries out of the way, I am now proud to announce our two new inductees into the Hall of Fame:

AL GORE

Citation:

For being more wrong, more often, and with more obnoxiousness than any politician since Jimmy Carter. Has been running for President since 1988 losing first to Michael Dukakis, then fellow cluebat Bill Clinton, and finally to George Bush. It is unknown at this time who he will lose to in 2008 but when he does, it will make him the biggest loser in the history of American politics.

Al Gore has succumbed to most of the loony conspiracy theories making the rounds in cluebat circles over the last five years which isn’t surprising given his less than penetrating intellect, his inability to differentiate between good and evil, and curious habit of dissing America while overseas in front of equally clueless foreigners.

JANE FONDA

Citation:

For demonstrating a cluelessness not only about politics, but also in one’s personal and professional life. Bad enough she sat on an anti-aircraft battery while visiting North Viet Nam back in the early 70’s; then she had to go and marry both the radical terrorist Tom Hayden and radical internationalist Ted Turner. And if there is a worse film ever made than Barbarella, we haven’t seen it.

In short…three strikes and she’s in.

I’m sorry if your candidate didn’t make it this time. Here’s hoping that leaving them out will spur them on to greater heights of cluelessness so that next time, they too can stand on the podium and wear that coveted crown made of Milk Thistle and receive the Plaque of Honor indicating their singular achievement of being named to the Carnival of the Clueless Cluebat Hall of Fame.

“Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t go to yours.”
(Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame baseball player)

“Hey Yogi! I think you’d fit in with our Hall of Famers too!”
(Me)

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Bergbikr of TMH Bacon Bits fills us in on the decade long effort to punish clueless Congressman Jim McDermott for leaking a private phone call between Republican congressmen to the New York Times.

Those placid pachyderms at Elephants in Academia are talking about explosives this week - as in blowing up Nevada with a new bunker busting bomb that has home state Senator Harry Reid demanding to be notified when a large part of his state is going to be annihilated.

Only one Swiftblog this week (last week we had three). This time it’s Dean Swift with a nice rant against Borders books for exhibiting clulessness for banning a magazine that dared show those cartoons of you know who.

The Liberal Wrong lives up to its billing and skewers Russ Feingold and the Democrats for trying to censure the President during wartime.

Cao has some real cluelessness in academia with Columbia University being totally unaware of what some people are using its computer equipment for.

Lots of cluelessness on display in Fausta’s piece on the heroic Cuban doctor Guillermo Fariñas who recently ended a hunger strike against deplorable conditions in the Cuban paradise. How about the UN Human Rights Commissioner who blames US support for democrats in Cuba for Castro’s oppression? Now that’s clueless.

Why don’t we just go ahead and give Congressman McKinney a great big dingo salute for being Cluebat of the Week by acclamation, shall we? Check out this piece from Josh Cohen on Mrs. Tin Foil hat.

Rofa Six has the viral video of the week. All girls school. “National School of Excellence.” And some guy is walking around asking the girls to sign a petition to “End Women’s Suffrage.” Absolutely. Hysterical.

Gullyborg has the clueless interview of the week with Liza Minnelli who has announced to one and all that she no longer wishes to be pleasured in the biblical way by anyone (nice pic of Gretchen Wilson btw! W00t!).

TIME FOR A LITTLE CARNIVAL SATIRE! FROM OUR UNSTABLE STABLE OF WRITERS!

The Baloney Press has a hilarious bit entitled “Congressional Democrats Prepare for Deployment to Afghanistan.”

Mr. Right has a one liner. Rodney Dangerfield is spinning, spinning in his grave.

Where do you suppose our favorite hippie chick Peace Moonbeam was during that march in LA for illegal immigrants?

Buckley F. Williams feasts on Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker who lived on fast food for 30 days, gained 20 pounds, and is now a speaker on the high school circuit.

Bookmark this site, Avant News “Tomorrow’s News Today.”

MAKES SURE YOU CHECK THE CARNIVAL EVERY WEEK FOR THE BEST IN SATIRE!

Minh-Duc has a searing piece about a Balkan genocide denier. Must read.

Mark Coffey has a “Note to Debbie Schussel” - a blogger who finished in the runner up position for Cluebat of the Week.

Scientist, Interrupted asks “Who is the Real Enemy of our Wildlife?” The answer may not surprise you but the story is gut wrenching nonetheless.

Kurt at Fly by Night has the skinny on cluebat John Dean’s appearance at the Feingold hearing on censure. Anyone else find it more than a little ironic that the man who handled the cover-up for Nixon is lecturing us on executive branch lawbreaking? Just curious.

Here’s some typical Kender: “Why Bush is the best President Mexico ever had…” Read it and weep.

Adam takes us to the dark side of liberal blogs where shooting the President passes as humor.

Pat Curley is riding Kevin Phillips who has been flogging the “Republicans Party is run by religious nut” meme for years.

Lovely Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has some typical moonbattery. Seems that NYU had a free speech event and the first thing they did was ban those cartoons of you know who.

Jack Cluth demonstrating the intellectual honesty he’s justly famous for (plus knowing a good target for humor when he sees it) makes Representative McKinney his “Dumbass of the Week.”

Finally, here are some clueless emailers who filled my mailbox following my C-Span appearance last Sunday.

Costs and benefits.

Short of all out war with a clear strategic goal such as unconditional surrender of the enemy, any military action taken by the United States must, in the end, take into account the price we will pay - human, economic, strategic - versus the benefits that will accrue to us in taking that action.

And if one were to tote up on paper the pluses and minuses of bombing Iranian nuclear sites to prevent the Iranian wildmen for getting their hands on a nuclear device, it would not be a pretty picture.

We would need an additional page or two for the minuses.

The gamble we took in Iraq was, at the time of the invasion, a good bet. There the potential gains to our security and our overall strategy in the Middle East far outweighed the minuses of roiling the volatile Arab street and spurring al Qaeda’s recruitment. As the war has gone on, however, the tote board is starting to look more and more even. There is still much to be gained with a successful conclusion to the Iraq operation (although lowering our sights as far as what can be realistically accomplished is now part of the game) and, of course, we’ve already benefited from getting rid of Saddam. But the minuses are starting to pile up and very soon we will be faced with the prospect of Iraq becoming a zero sum game with whatever benefits accruing to our security and strategic position in the Middle East being offset by losses to our overall security posture and an actual diminishing of our influence in the region.

We are not at that point yet in Iraq. But it is on the horizon. And if we ever do reach the point of diminishing returns outweighing any possible gain, we will have to reassess whether it is morally right to ask our men and women to remain in harms way for a cause in which there is no foreseeable gain to the United States.

One sure way to make Iraq a lost cause is to bomb Iran. If we were to take that step, the insurgents in Iraq would be joined by the two largest Shia militias - Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army and the largest pro-Iranian militia the Badr Brigade - in armed opposition. That would put at least 350,000 angry Shias in direct military confrontation with US forces, scramble the political situation perhaps beyond salvage, and almost guarantee a humiliating retreat by US forces. Any guesses about what kind of state would emerge from this chaos?

That’s for starters. The probability of Iranian missile counterstrikes against our bases in the Middle East not to mention their ability to attack our troops in Iraq would also have to go into the ledger under “minuses” when contemplating military action against the mullahs.

How about the economic impact of a strike on Iranian nuclear infrastructure? While I have complete confidence in our navy to severely degrade the Iranian capability to interdict shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, I doubt whether we would be able to destroy their ability to cause enormous problems for tankers making their way through that vital choke point.

At its narrowest, the Straits are only 34 miles wide - easy striking distance for a variety of land-to-ship missiles that the mullahs have been buying from the French, the Chinese, and the Russians over the last two years in anticipation of just such an eventuality. It is doubtful we could destroy all of them. And what would be the resulting increase in the cost of a barrel of oil if the Iranians managed to sink a couple of tankers in the Straits? Estimates range from a premium on the spot market of $20 BBL to $50 BBL which would put the cost of a gallon of gas at between $3.05 and $4.85 a gallon (2.5 cents rise per dollar increase in a BBL with a baseline of of $2.60 per gallon - which is what it is at the gas station around the corner from where I live).

Ask an independent trucker what $5 a gallon for deisel would do to his business. And these independents carry 80% of our food from distribution centers to the grocery store not to mention stocking shelves in a wide variety of other retail businesses. If a significant number of them were unable to make a living hauling freight, the consequences to the cost of living, employment, interest rates, and a wide variety of other economic indicators would be pretty grim.

Then there is the probability that the Iranians would engage in so-called “asymmetrical warfare” or terrorism. The WaPo article detailing this eventuality makes for some pretty frightening reading:

Former CIA terrorism analyst Paul R. Pillar said that any U.S. or Israeli airstrike on Iranian territory “would be regarded as an act of war” by Tehran, and that Iran would strike back with its terrorist groups. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that. . . . Whether it’s overseas at the hands of Hezbollah, in Iraq or possibly Europe, within the regime there would be pressure to take violent action.”

Finally, from all accounts I’ve read, since it is extremely unlikely we will be able to delay the Iranian nuclear program more than 2 or 3 years, one must also factor in the probability when the Iranians rebuild their infrastructure, they will make it that much harder for us to strike the next time.

John McCain has been quoted as saying “[T]here’s only one thing worse than the United States exercising the military option; that is a nuclear-armed Iran.” Clearly that is incorrect. There are several things worse than a nuclear armed Iran starting with the probability of a humiliating defeat in Iraq, moving on to a severe downturn in our economy, followed by increasing instability in the Middle East, and ending up with the real possibility of a 9/11 type attack by Iranian supported terrorists.

Of course, discussion of Iranian nuclear weapons has to include what options are available to Israel. And surprisingly, those options seem to be few and far between:

[O]ne of the take-aways from my recent Israel trip is that Israeli national security bureaucrats — diplomats and generals — have far greater confidence that there are numerous potential solutions to the growing Iran crisis short of bombing them in an invasive, hot attack.

One of the issues that came up in many of the national security related discussions I had was that Israel has maintained and cultivated a very strong human intelligence network inside Iran. The two nations were close strategic allies 25 years ago — and continue, in many behind-the- scenes ways, to communicate and possibly even to coordinate certain actions. It doesn’t mean that Israel is ready to appease Iran’s regional ambitions, but it does mean that I have witnessed far more worries about Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Holocaust and anti-Israel rhetoric in the U.S. than I did in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

Many serious Iran watchers in Israel think that chances are relatively high that “internal developments” will emerge in Iran to constrain Ahmadinejad’s “political options and political life.”

TALK TO THE ISRAELIS — the ones responsible for national security there. I found their sensibilities on Iran to be remarkably well informed, nuanced, confident, and sensible.

Nearly everyone I spoke to in Israel who ranged in political sympathies from the Likud right to Maretz left thought that the tone of the AIPAC conference had been too shrill and that Israel thought it wrong-headed and too impulsive to be engaged in saber-rattling with Iran at this stage.

In the past, I’ve been occasionally critical of Israeli influence over U.S. decisionmakers when I felt that American and Israeli national security interests were not as convergent in some respective case as some argued. However, in this instance on Iran, Israel’s national security thinkers and diplomats are on the side of logic — and it is in American national interests to hear the Israeli position and consider the roots of their surprising position.

I would be perhaps less sanguine about a regime change having any effect whatsoever on Iranian nuclear ambitions. The only alternative at this point seems to be former President Rafsanjani who initiated the Iranian nuclear program in the first place back in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. Combine that with a clear mandate from the Iranian people - who, like the Pakistani people see building a nuclear device as a question of national pride - and it becomes clear that even if the Supreme Council roused itself and ousted President Ahmadinejad, nothing would change in the Iranian drive to build nukes.

Israel is the one nation that would be in the Iranian crosshairs from the minute the mullahs went nuclear. And if the Jewish state is resigned to the Iranians getting nukes, then perhaps we should be looking at what our regional response should be in that context.

This monograph by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) examined the question of what the United States could do in the region with a nuclear armed Iran. Here are some of their options:

* Engage in traditional deterrent strategies such as making it clear to Tehran that the use or threatening the use of nuclear weapons has reciprocal disadvantages to the regime.

* Allow the development of nuclear weapons by states threatened by Iran such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

* Employ a regional military strategy against the regime by building credible alliances.

* Work with dissident groups to create an armed, united opposition that could affect regime change.

These are just a few of the unsatisfactory but realistic options open to us if we resign ourselves to the reality of the Iranian government going nuclear. The question then becomes, are they better than bombing?

In the short term, one would have to say it’s a wash - equally bad outcomes to a bad situation. But in the longer term, the non-military options have a chance of isolating the Iranians and confronting their ambitions in the region. For those reasons, I think that unless something dramatic happens to change the situation, as it stands now the best course of action for the United States is to follow non-military actions, proceeding from the assumption that the Iranians will have a bomb in 3-5 years.

With their oil wealth, an exploding population that is becoming increasingly literate, and economic and strategic alliances forming with both Russia and China, Iran is going to be a threat to the region with or without nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. By forgoing the military option, we can still confront the mullahs and stifle their dreams of dominating the region with their nuclear arsenal.

In all the rush of the last few days, I failed to post a link to my debut appearance on C-Span’s Washington Journal on Sunday.

Just in case you were waiting with bated breath in anticipation of seeing my munificent presence on the telly as I fought the good fight against the lovely Taylor Marsh, the liberal bias of C-Span, and the earpiece that kept trying to fall out of my ear…

Here’s a link to the video page at C-Span. My segment can be found under the Sunday, April 2 show.

(Hint: I’m the fidgety one)

Almost a year and a half ago, I did a post advocating the awarding of Medals of Honor to the passengers of Flight #93.

Now that the movie United 93 is set to be released April 28, I think it is time once again to propose that those brave men and women who became our very first warriors in the War on Terror be given the highest decoration that can be given to an American citizen.

The criteria for awarding the Medal of Honor can be found here. The eligibility requirements are pretty straightforward. One of three conditions must be met:

a.) while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States;
b.) while engaged in military operations involving an opposing foreign force; or,
c.) while serving with friendly forces engaged in armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.

The passengers of Flight #93 meet one of those criteria. Al Qaeda is certainly “an enemy of the United States” and by storming the cockpit, our people certainly “engaged in an action” against that enemy.

What always struck me about the story was that these people charged that cockpit knowing full well that with the pilots dead, there was no one else on board who knew anything about flying a jet. Even if they had succeeded in breaking into the cockpit and overcoming the hijackers, the chances were next to zero that they would survive. This is the kind of selflessness and willingness to sacrifice one’s life that you see on a battlefield when someone falls on a grenade to save their comrades or charges a machine gun nest to give his unit a chance to retreat.

I understand the problem with giving the Medal of Honor to civilians. And giving it to all the passengers even though some did not participate in the action would also be problematic. Then there is the real issue of fairness; if you are going to give a Medal of Honor to the passengers of Flight #93, why not the passengers of the other ill-fated jets not to mention honoring the otherworldly courage shown by deceased firemen and policemen who died in the Towers.

All of this is true. But in the end, the passengers of Flight #93 made a profound statement to the world and especially to our enemies; Americans will not go quietly, that there is a cost to attacking us. They were the American counterpart to that brave Italian Fabrizio Quattrocchi who shouted at his al Qaeda executioners before he died “Now I’ll show you how an Italian dies…”

It is not my intention to cheapen this award by advocating that we give it to so many. Nor is it my intent to offend current Medal of Honor winners who may have a much different opinion than mine regarding the efficacy of giving this award to civilians. And I understand that the Congressional Gold Medal was created specifically as a civilian counterpart to the military’s Medal of Honor.

Despite all, I think it is long past time that some significant acknowledgement of the sacrifice of the passengers on Flight #93 be made. History demands it. And the more than 3,000 people who perished that day would, I believe, demand it as well.

UPDATE

MacRanger has a superior post about the movie and why it’s important to remember Flight #93 and 9/11. Must read.

Also, here’s my American Thinker piece today on the film United 93 and how Hollywood is uniquely suited to put 9/11 into a cultural context.

Judith Weiss:

I have a feeling this movie will quietly “separate the men from the boys,” as it were. It will make the moonbats more moonbatty, and it will strengthen the resolve of those inclined that way. It will draw a line in the sand. It will do medium boxoffice and medium DVD sales but become kind of a “cult classic” in that it will be a cultural identifier for the group of people who want to win this war and feel surrounded by those who are hostile or indifferent. So it will be a quiet steady propaganda/morale booster for our side.

That’s my prediction - we’ll see if it comes true.

I think momentum for this film is building very quickly. On his show today, Rush Limbaugh mentioned that he had talked to someone who had seen it and said it was extremely well done. I believe there is a real hunger out there for some certitude in this war and seeing a film about 9/11 just might be the cultural touchstone that supplies it. In this respect, I believe that Judith is mistaken in her belief that the film will be a modest success. I think it has a chance to be a real sleeper, a blockbuster not just in red states but blue ones as well.

Ordinary Americans are so far removed from the academic, journalistic, and cultural elites who continue to try and tell them what they should think, how they should feel, and most importantly, what they should watch in films and TV. These Americans - the people who do the working, the playing, the caring, the laughing, the living, and the dying in this country are ready to make a statement. They might not be particularly fond of George Bush. They might be heartily sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington. They could even be losing faith in our ability to win through to absolute victory in Iraq. But they will not abide seeing the country run down by a bunch of cultural thugs who never miss a chance to tell them how stupid they are to be patriotic, God fearing, flag waving, morons.

That gets old after a while.

UPDATE II

Reader Richard Riley makes two salient points in the comments.

The first is that the passengers were, in effect, combatants in a war as much as the farmers were who answered the call to march to the Lexington green and stand up against the British. Further, I believe a “militia” was defined in most states as all adult males over the age of 18. In this respect, the passengers were in fact warriors fighting for America.

The second point Mr. Riley makes is that a civilian has been awarded the CHOH in the past. So while it may be against current rules to give the medal to civilians and allow for a unit type citation, cannot exceptions be made? Will these exceptions cheapen the award?

I am not the one to answer those questions. Perhaps we should ask living MOH winners what they think.

Captain Ed appears to have a truly original story regarding a new data-mining project that seems to be a follow-up to Able Danger, the pre-9/11 program that was carried out by DoD and which some claim identified some of the hijackers as early as 1999.

CQ has learned that such an effort has already been launched at the Pentagon. Titled “Able Providence”, the effort seeks to use the Able Danger “engine” to generate hot leads for counterterrorism and law enforcement agents to pursue. Located in the Office of National Intelligence, AP will serve all agencies…

The Able Providence project, estimated at an initial cost of around $27 million, will report jointly to the Director of National Intelligence (John Negroponte) and the Joint Chiefs. The datamining component of the project, named KIMBERLITE MAGIC, will follow and update the SOCOM and NOAH efforts of the pre-9/11 period. After an initial burn-in phase, the Able Providence team will then coordinate with the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), SOCOM, Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS (Customs/TSA, etc) and partner with Army 1st Info Ops Command (IDC), Army Asymmetric Warfare Group (ASW), Navy DEEP BLUE, Air Force CHECKMATE to produce actionable “Decision Support” Option Packets. AP would then act as a conduit for these efforts to law enforcement agencies for immediate domestic action when required.

Congratulations to Ed on a terrific scoop. Check CQ frequently during the day as Ed plans to update the information.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Coming soon to a theater near you – whether you’re ready or not – will be the first mass market attempt by Hollywood to insert the tragedy of 9/11 into the American narrative. United 93, a Universal Studios project set to open April 28, tells the story of the ill-fated airliner whose passengers heroically attacked the cockpit and foiled the hijackers’ plans to fly the plane into the White House.

The question isn’t whether or not the film should have been made, but rather whether or not the people of the United States are ready for Hollywood to do what Hollywood does best: breathe life into myth and employ marketing skills honed over a century of huckstering to fold 9/11 permanently into the fabric of American culture.

The industry is watching very closely how U-93 does at the box office. Set to open later this summer is Paramount’s Oliver Stone blockbuster World Trade Center, which, unlike the Universal production, will feature big name actors and a very big budget. At bottom of course, it’s all about the money. And a good showing by U-93 will encourage other studios and other producers to jump on the 9/11 project bandwagon while the subject is “hot.”

By various accounts, there are half a dozen or more 9/11 projects on the boards awaiting final approval by the hard-eyed money men who rule Hollywood. And the question uppermost in their minds is the simple bottom line calculation of how many Americans are truly ready to accept our searing national nightmare of 9/11 played out on the big screen, with all the concomitant emotional and psychological baggage inherent in an event that all but the youngest among us lived through and shared.

Trailers for the movie shown in theaters have elicited some gut-wrenching responses. Newsweek tells of one such incident in New York City where the theater actually pulled the trailer after several complaints:

The AMC Loews theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side took the rare step of pulling the trailer from its screens after several complaints. “One lady was crying,” says one of the theater’s managers, Kevin Adjodha. “She was saying we shouldn’t have [played the trailer]. That this was wrong … I don’t think people are ready for this.”

A similar reaction occurred in Los Angeles when the trailer was shown there:When the trailer played before “Inside Man” last week at the famed Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, audience members began calling out, “Too soon!”

(Here’s a link to the trailer. It will upset you.)

“Too soon” may be a legitimate complaint for many, many people. The trailer is absolutely devastating. For many Americans, 9/11 is still a raw, open wound that refuses to close despite the passage of time. It is these people who will most likely recoil in horror at the images of planes flying into buildings and desperate people taking desperate chances.

But does this mean that U-93 will flop?

Ultimately, the success or failure of U-93 will hinge on the ability of the American people to embrace the tragedy as a part of our history and not shun it because the memory of that day lingers in the shadow world of nightmare.

No medium is more suited to this process of turning history into myth than film. The secret of the cinema has always been its ability to draw us into a story while at the same time allowing us to remain as a semi-detached observer, both in and out of the narrative. Where 9/11 is concerned, the emotional bombshells that will be at the film’s heart will be somewhat tempered by the realization – often deliberately fostered by the director using subtle tricks of camera angles and scene cuts – that we are, after all, watching a movie.

It is, of course, part of the film-going experience to be frightened, or thrilled, or titillated, or moved to tears. A director manipulates our feelings throughout his creation, conducting our emotions like Lorin Maazel before the New York Philharmonic. Good directors can play us like an instrument so that we never realize that we are held in thrall until we are jarred awake by a climax or plot twist. Alfred Hitchcock was a master at playing his audience, almost lulling them to sleep until he chose to hurl them out of their seats with a few seconds of terror.

The magic of movies is how very much like a dream they are; a third person excursion into a world created by the artistry and imagination of some very talented people augmented by a gee-whiz technology that can make the dream almost too real. For writer/director Paul Greenglass (The Bourne Identity) the challenge is obvious; try to immerse the audience in a film where everyone knows the details of the plot from beginning to end. We know who the protagonists are. We know what happens to the plane. The only question in the mind of the audience is will the story that unfolds match expectations of what it would have been like to actually be there.

Director Ron Howard had a similar problem confronting him when he chose to make Apollo 13. Everyone knew the bare outlines of the story – that the spacecraft got into trouble and only through the hard work of NASA and the grace of God did the astronauts survive. Howard chose to weave a narrative of unusual power by interspersing scenes from the damaged space ship with the scrambling technicians at NASA working against the clock and the human drama of the families of the astronauts in crisis. The result was an emotional blockbuster of a movie that had the audience cheering at the end despite knowing the outcome in advance.

Greenglass is not vouchsafed the luxury of a completely uplifting storyline. However, the raw material he has to work with is dramatic enough. And if the trailer of the movie is any indication, he will be able to use several dramatic devices to advance his story without resorting to cheap theatrics and special effects wizardry.

But there is a question that begs to be asked and answered; is it necessary and proper to make a movie about 9/11 now, less than 6 years after the tragedy?Hollywood has been known to stoop to unfathomable depths of exploitive degeneracy in the past when it came to tragedies. Movies about serial killers like David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Jeffrey Dahmer, and Ted Bundy were all rushed into production and into theaters within months of their stories appearing on the news.

But 9/11 is different. There are people alive today whose flight from the doomed Towers has so altered their perceptions that the smell of the burning flesh of their comrades still resides in their nostrils and they can still hear the horrible, shattering sounds of people hitting the courtyard in front of the Towers after jumping out of windows far above to escape the flames.

For these and perhaps millions of others whose souls were seared by the horrific images of that day shown live and in color on our TV screens, 9/11 is not an historical event as much as it is a part of their life. In that respect, any film about 9/11 becomes an autobiographical portrait, more documentary than drama. It is almost like opening a personal diary, peeking at the contents, and showing all the secrets of one’s personal life to the rest of the world. For many Americans, it will be an intrusion so invasive that they will instinctively turn away. These are the walking wounded from 9/11 and they deserve our sympathy and understanding.

But for the rest of us, it is time to confront the evil and place it into the great narrative story of American history. The way events pass from history into myth often determines how future generations relate in an emotional way to the times. Pearl Harbor, an attack more devastating militarily but without the immediate emotional impact of 9/11, was mythologized almost immediately thanks to the brilliant propaganda work done by director John Ford, whose 1943 production December 7th: The Pearl Harbor Story was so iconic that Hollywood borrowed battle sequences from the film for years.

The film, however, never showed the true nature of the American Navy’s disaster that day because the military refused to allow Ford to show several sequences critical of the naval commanders, as well as scenes that offered analysis of what went wrong. It was left for later films like From Here to Eternity and the joint American-Japanese production Tora! Tora! Tora! to tell that excruciating story.

I would hate to see something similar happen to films about 9/11. The story of that day includes not only snippets of unparalleled heroism and base cowardice but also confusion, ineptness, and a fatal refusal to acknowledge the scope of what was taking place in the skies over America that day. Leaving these painful yet vital facts out of the myth will cheapen the sacrifice of those who gave their lives as well as allow people to draw the wrong conclusions about what kind of country America was that day.

A large part of the narrative of 9/11 has to be America asleep at the wheel, careening toward disaster for most of the previous decade, oblivious to the dark clouds of fanaticism and hate that were building on the horizon. The paralysis of all who could have either prevented or minimized the tragedy can only be explained in that context. And Hollywood is particularly well suited to tell that story in all its glory and shame.

Movies about 9/11 will be difficult to watch for all of us. Some may go to the theater fully expecting to view the movie but will be forced to get up and leave in the middle of it because the rush of memory will be so painful as to make it unbearable to watch. For others who stay until the end, let’s hope they are rewarded with a cinema experience that is both sobering and uplifting at the same time.

It’s going to be a long war. In order to fight it and win, we must be able to put the tragedy of 9/11 in a box and be able to view it as we would a sad memento as from the funeral of a loved one. And one way we Americans can put these memories into that kind of context is by allowing our greatest cultural gift to the rest of the world – Hollywood movies – to close one chapter of our national history book and begin another.

CAPTAIN RENAULT: Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects. (Casablanca, 1942)

I don’t read them much anymore, but there was a time I was huge fan of the mystery novel. G.K. Chesterson’s Father Brown novels were particular favorites but Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were also on my summer reading list. And no, I am not the type that goes to the end of the novel first and peeks to see whodunnit although there were times that the temptation became almost overwhelming. This was especially true immediately after discovering that your own prime suspect either gets killed off or proves to be innocent. After having invested so much emotional capital in one suspect, to have him or her killed off 50 pages from the end of the book was maddening.

Nevertheless, I wanted to wait for that absolutely delicious moment when Father Brown or Marlowe revealed all, tying up the loose ends and fingering the killer. The thrill wasn’t necessarily in finding out who the killer was but in following the sheer, brute logic used by the detective to unmask him. There is something enormously satisfying in reading or listening to a good dialectic. And a good mystery writer will be able to get to the emotional core of a reader by taking him on a journey through the thought processes that leads to the exposure of the bad guy.

Television and film don’t lend themselves to such “Eureka!” moments because we can see too much of what’s going on. For instance, with one or two exceptions, Agatha Christie’s novels did not translate well to the silver screen. Christie and most other mystery novelists rely on intimacy with the reader to build suspense, something that is rarely possible in film (although I thought The Orient Express worked quite well because of the constricted space - the train - where the action took place).

The revelation in last night’s episode that President Jellyfish himself is the monster behind it all proved to be the shock of the year. Lots of good misdirection by the writers in previous episodes as well as some great acting by Gregory Itzin made the moment work as well as almost any similar moment I can recall. Perhaps the revelation that Kevin Spacey’s character in Usual Suspects was actually the legendary Kaiser Sozsa rivalled it in the theater. But one would be hard pressed to think of a more shocking moment on TV in recent memory.

So now, after 18 episodes, Jack and CTU (what’s left of them) realize who and what they are up against. The race is on to save American democracy. And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have on the frontlines than Jack Bauer.

SUMMARY

Where’s Jack? The final explosion that ripped through the gas distribution center had Jack and Bierko perilously close to the flames and falling debris. Did Jack make it? Or, is Chloe going to have to strap on a pair of six shooters and battle the terrorists in Jack’s place?

That image alone is enough to get the terrorists to surrender.

Then, through the swirling smoke and back-lit gas works, a figure emerges carrying someone. It’s Jack and he has Bierko slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Dropping the terrorist on the ground at Curtis’s feet like a trophy buck from a deer hunt, Jack screams into Bierko’s face trying to wake him. The terrorist is either too injured or too terrified to answer so Jack orders him transferred to CTU medical so that he can be patched up for his little session to come with Richard and his little black bag of truth serum.

In the meantime, Jack is doing some thinking. He figures Henderson, the poor misguided patriot that he is, would never kill 200,000 of his fellow citizens. Hence, since his ex-friend was protecting someone big and important (so big he allowed his wife to get shot in the thigh by Jack in fear of revealing the name) Jack reasons that the plot extends into the highest reaches of the United States government. In his conversation with Bill about this turn of events, Jack lets on that he’s scared.

If Jack is scared, it’s time to pack up the wife and kids and move to Montana to join a survivalist cult.

Back at CTU, Grandma Hayes gets an earful from Vice President Strangelove who wonders what the hold-up is with the Homeland Security takeover of the Counter Terrorism Unit. Granny’s bureaucratic antennae is fully extended, realizing as she does it is going to be hard to justify the coup d’etat if Bill puts up a stink. Enter her slimy assistant Miles who comes up with the perfect CYA instrument - a letter, signed by Audrey, implicating Bill in all sorts of incompetence regarding the day’s events. The elegance of the ass covering plan reveals why some people are born to be bureacrats and most others are birthed as human beings.

Informed that Wayne and Aaron eluded the trap set by his men, Henderson decides it’s time for Plan B - kidnapping the 8 year old daughter of Evelyn, the First Lady’s assistant who, we are informed by Wayne, was President Palmer’s source for information coming out of the Executive Branch. Confronting Evelyn, Wayne tries to get her to reveal what she knows. Alas, Evelyn wants her daughter rescued before she’ll talk (cue Jack in the wings).

Jack understands perfectly, having made worse deals with terrorists, and agrees to go after the little girl. He tells Wayne to meet him at an old barn near the Presidential retreat.

The coup at CTU by DHS is carried out with ruthless efficiency. All that’s left to do in order to cover all the bases is to get the CYA document with Audrey’s signature on it. For this, Miles takes it upon himself to convince Audrey of the practicality of the matter. When Audrey balks and gets ready to leave, Miles congratulates on her loyalty and then, quite casually, raises what the slimeball thinks is his piece de resistance :

MILES: Oh…just to confirm; as on-site liaison for DoD, you participated in today’s decision making process?

AUDREY: What’s your point?

MILES: Serious mistakes were made here today that resulted in the loss of American lives. It would be a shame to see the taint of CTU’s mismanagement spread to your agency (pregnant pause)…or your career. By signing this, you isolate the fallout from today’s events to Bill Buchanan and CTU…where it belongs.

AUDREY: (Walks deliberately over to Miles and leans over) I’m proud of what we did here today. The people at CTU are heroes including Bill Buchanan. This takeover is completely unwarranted. And I won’t help you justify it.

The crestfallen reaction of Miles was priceless. It’s the second time he’s been forced to retreat like a beaten dog, the other incident involving Chloe and Sweet Sherry. Let’s hope he makes a habit of it.

No sooner had Needlenose stood up to the bureaucratic bully than Jack calls and tells her that he needs a satellite tasked to help in the rescue operation involving the kidnapped girl. Audrey realizes right away that she needs Chloe’s super-geek skills in the matter and also sees that the only way she can do that is by signing the CYA document and bargaining for Chloe’s services.

Swallowing her pride, she makes the deal with Granny regarding Chloe. The confrontation with Bill (and slimeball Miles being insufferably smug in giving Bill the news) is painful but necessary. She nearly has to kidnap Chloe who has her own strong feelings about loyalty in order to help. Chloe at times seems like a little lost girl, running up to Bill to ask him what’s going on and needing reassurance that everything is going to be alright. It would be a very attractive trait - if she wasn’t such a bitch the other 99% of the time.

When Henderson calls Evelyn to set up the exchange - information implicating the real villain for her daughter - Jack is listening in and gets Chloe to give him satellite coverage of the killing field. Jack is once again going to have to wade through a river of gore to achieve his immediate objective; save the little girl and capture his nemesis Henderson.

Wayne, perhaps not realizing what he’s letting himself in for, volunteers to help Jack in his mission. Bauer tries to dissuade him:

WAYNE: I was a Marine, Jack.

JACK: I know that Wayne. And you never saw combat. There’s a big difference between training to kill someone and actually having to do it. I can’t put you in harm’s way out of respect for your brother. Your family needs you now.

WAYNE: (Quietly) These are the people who killed my brother, Jack. They shot a bullet right through his neck and then he died in my arms. Put yourself in my position. Could you just walk away.

JACK: No.

WAYNE: Neither can I. I’m coming with you.

And so Wayne, not realizing that most of Jack’s partners end up wishing they hadn’t gone with him, teams up with Jack to get the little girl back and unearth the plot threatening the United States.

Downloading an infrared satellite image of the kill zone to Jack’s PDA shows 10 targets. After offing two bad guys, Jack sends Wayne on an end run to take out a guard so that he can make it to a tower and take out a sniper.

Wayne makes it to the kill point but perhaps because he can’t shoot the terrorist in the back, waits until he turns around before plugging him twice. Let’s hope Wayne loses that hesitancy if he and Jack are going to be teamed up again. Next time he won’t be so lucky.

After Jack takes care of the sniper, Evelyn shows up and demands her daughter from Henderson. The unsuspecting traitor then finds out just how much trouble he’s in when, after the mother-daughter reunion, Jack opens fire taking down two while Wayne, in perfect flanking position, takes out two more. Seeing the jig is up, Henderson starts to take off in Evelyn’s car, slamming into one of his own men while making his escape. Jack and Wayne fire wildly at the fleeing SUV but once again, Henderson lives to see another day.

Jack races over to find Evelyn slightly wounded. He orders Evelyn to live up to her agreement and tell him about the Vice President’s involvement. Evelyn looks at Jack with horror; the Vice President had nothing to do with all this…

Then…who?

Speeding away from Jack, Henderson is on the phone apologizing to Mr. Big, the man in charge of the entire operation. The peremptory tones and authoritative voice telling Henderson to get the job done is unfamiliar and yet…

And yet the voice betrays the speaker as someone used to giving commands and having them obeyed. The conversation between the two traitors is ending. We see the back of Mr. Big. He is in shadow. As the camera slowly pans left, the face starts to come into view - the hooded eyes, high forehead, look familiar but…but it can’t be. For the briefest of moments, the mind recoils in denial not quite believing what they eyes are telling it.

But there’s no mistake. It is President Logan. And the look on his face and body language showing a commanding presence and determination reveal the man to be a consummate actor. He has had everyone fooled. And now the race is on to foil whatever ex-President Jellyfish’s plot turns out to be.

BODY COUNT

Jack takes down 5 traitors while Wayne accounts for 3. And you can add hit and run homicide to Henderson’s list of crimes.

JACK: 24

SHOW: 164

SPECULATION

Does Logan actually believe he can take over the government of the United States and establish a dictatorship? If so, he must have one more terrorist attack up his sleeve that will devastate the country and have people begging him to take on dictatorial powers. Will it be a nuke? More bio-terror? How about starting a war?

Have some fun in the comments…

UPDATE

As usual, for the best liveblogging, snarky commentary, photoshop magic, and general Jack Bauer mayhem, click on Blogs4Bauer and keep scrolling.

UPDATE II

It’s 10:00 AM and no one has speculated on the obvious reason for Logan’s transformation.

Don’t you people watch soap operas? Obviously, Logan is suffering from a split personality. His wimpy side doesn’t know what his Orwellian side is doing which would explain everything.

The only drawback to that theory is his wife. But given she’s nutzo herself, maybe she couldn’t see it in him.

Would someone please give Matt Stoeller of MyDD a lollipop and tell him to STFU?

There’s a discussion over at The Moderate Voice about whether the Jill Carroll affair damages the credibility of bloggers. I find this discussion irritating, because it cuts to a basic problem with the nonpartisan new media blog pontificators who don’t want to deal with the fact that the right-wing movement is populated by creepy racists. As such, they ignore the AM talk radio circuit and mainstream conservative publications, as if they weren’t part of the charge on Carroll, and pretend like this episode reveals something about ‘the blogs’. It doesn’t.

So let me spell it out. The Carroll thing is a fairly standard storyline that predates blogs. Right-wingers tend to hate a free media. Right-wingers tend to say creepy and racist things. Right-wingers tend to hate reporters who say that all isn’t apple pie in Iraq. This is true on the AM talk radio circuit, at the RNC, in the Oval Office, and on right-wing blogs. I mean the GOP.com blog even has a tag ‘good news from Iraq’.

This has NOTHING to do with blogs. Zero. This has to do with a flat-out racist and warmongering right-wing movement that doesn’t like a woman whose survival cuts against their narrative. So please stop lumping progressives like me in with the right-wing just because we both use a similar web-based publishing platform. NEENER, NEENER, NEENER, NEENER…

(Okay. That list bit was mine. But it isn’t entirely out of place, is it?)

I think at the moment I’m “tending” to throw up.

Actually, this one is an award winner. How many baseless (as in unspecified and unproven), scurrilous, laughably ignorant, witless, jaw-droppingly idiotic charges can one drooling, mouth breathing refugee from the cuckoo land that calls itself the “Reality Based Community” make and still be taken seriously by anyone over the age of 4?

This cannot be serious. There simply is no way that adults of any ideological stripe can read this drivel and say “I think the lad is on to something here.”

Besides being an execrable piece of writing (kinda cliche heavy there Matt, dontchya think?) one wonders what Stoeller had for breakfast. Whatever he ate that causes this much bile to rise in his throat, I suggest he switch to something a little more bland like bacon and eggs smothered in Tabasco sauce. Or perhaps a little Eggs Benedict with a side of raw Hungarian Peppers.

It wouldn’t do any good to try and “rebut” these “charges.” But of course, Mr. Stoeller is not making “charges” so much as he is annunciating a credo. And, like the Islamists he and his compatriots on the left continue to unwittingly and stupidly assist, their beliefs control their lives. Such inflexibility of thought brooks no opposition, no deviation lest their worldview collapse in a heap of broken verities and allow for the truth to blow away all their silly, stupid pretensions of moral superiority.

To quote Bugs Bunny, a philosopher and thinker as brilliant as Mr. Stoeller himself:

“What a maroon.”

UPDATE

Pat Curley has his own thoughts on Stoeller’s idiocy as well as some artwork that describes our buddy Matty to a “T.”

UPDATE

Jimbo in the comments reminds me of the #1 rule in journalistic combat: If you are going to attack someone, make sure you spell his name right.

I apologize to Mr. Stoller for spelling his name wrong. I guess that lets me out as a left wing Hollywood publicist who wouldn’t care about whether his client’s publicity was good or bad just as long as the actor’s name was spelled correctly.

As you can imagine, the loony lefties who visit here constantly spell my name wrong, insisting on spelling it Moron rather than the correct, Irish spelling which is Moran.

I don’t have the heart to tell them that the last time someone consistently spelled my name that way was back in the third grade when I was sitting next to Judy Pignataro who used to pass me notes with nothing but the word “Moron” written on it about a dozen times. The comparison holds up pretty well.

I will take a back seat to no one in my efforts to expose what I see as bias on the part of the mainstream press when they report on a host of issues. A simple search of this site will show that I have devoted hundreds of posts to this subject and given much time and attention to destroying faulty logic, knocking down strawmen, and generally giving our MSM brethren a hard time.

But the way so many bloggers jumped on the Jill Carroll story this past weekend - both right and left - has compelled me to examine many of my own assumptions about how we in the blogosphere treat the press and how unless things change there is the real possibility that in bringing down the media, we may be destroying ourselves as well.

First of all, I am not a journalist. I do not want to be considered a journalist. I do not want to become a journalist. With two brothers who are making a living as journalists, I have a great deal of respect for the craft as it is practiced by those who take journalism seriously and who live by its codes and precepts. But for me, I am a scribbler, a polemicist, a rabble rouser, a 52 year old grossly opinionated fat man with a loud mouth and sharp pen. Sam Adams is my hero. Tom Paine is my role model.

Clearly, you will not find a journalist anywhere in that description. A journalist - even one who publishes their opinions on a regular basis - takes extraordinary care to make sure all the facts contained in a story are accurate and true, employs a writing style that is as clear and concise as possible with little hyperbole and less emotion, and crafts a finished product that adheres to the standards of the publication he is writing for.

That lets me and most bloggers out. By and large, most bloggers write for themselves or at least, write about what interests them. With few exceptions, most bloggers are verbose, rambling hither and thithter, sometimes hitting their intended target and sometimes trailing off into the ether with no salient points made and little meaning or context in their post. Any MSM editor looking at the average blog post - mine included - would shudder. For this reason (among others) reporters and columnists with a few notable exceptions, look down their noses at blogs and bloggers while decrying the attacks of these anklebiters who have the temerity to brag about how they will someday replace them.

This is becoming less and less likely as blogs mature. Not because there aren’t bloggers who are conscientious about getting their facts right or because there is a dearth of talented people in the blogosphere but rather because the nature of journalism and the nature of blogging are diverging. Both are changing at a rapid pace. And while there will always be a symbiotic relationship between the two, rather than merging as many prophets of the New Media have been promising, they are both evolving to reflect the realities of commerce - something perhaps unforeseen as recently as a year ago.

I have nothing but the greatest respect for people like Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis who have been proselytizing how “citizen journalists” of the New Media will crash the gates where content is disseminated in dribs and drabs and open the floodgates of information that will revolutionize the way news is received and digested. Their thesis - that content will no longer be king but rather sharing information in a linked community of like minded individuals will be where the center of gravity settles when the dust of the new media revolution clears - is based on good analysis and solid logic. It may even come to pass.

But that revolution will have to be seen separately from the issue of what is to become of what we now call blogging. I mentioned in a previous post that the national pastime of blogs had become “scalp hunting.” This relentless pursuit of people in politically motivated witch hunts is only a symptom of what has gone terribly wrong in the blogosphere: At bottom, it is no longer a question of blogs being crusaders for truth, justice, and the American way but rather a race to see whose ox can be gored next. The importance of finishing first in that race is that the rewards can be very enticing; readership and links. In some cases - and the Carroll case is illustrative - the wilder the charges and more radical the language used, the more attention one is afforded by the amorphous mass of bloggers and readers of blogs who will soon be the determining factor in what promises to be vast amounts of money flowing into Blogland.

I can hear my detractors now. “But I don’t blog for the money, I blog because it gives me personal satisfaction.” I believe you and wish you well. Now please get out of the way while the other 80% of us who harbor delusions of grandeur about making a living blogging continue to run the race to the bottom over your prostrate hides.

As a practical matter, what this means is that the kind of character assassination we’ve seen recently is only going to get worse. That’s because the amount of money pouring into the blogosphere is only going to go up for the foreseeable future. It should be interesting to see to what lengths people will go to get a piece of that action.

Face it. Even if “only” 9-10 million people ever read blogs on a regular basis, that is 9-10 million people gathering basically in one place. Advertisers are not stupid. Those kinds of numbers attract people trying to sell something as bees to butter. And despite the improbability of more than a couple of dozen bloggers ever striking paydirt with their on-line efforts, many thousands will enter the fray and try their luck at reaching for the brass ring just the same.

Consider if you will the desire to become a professional athlete. The chances of any one high school player making it to the pros is extraordinarily low. Only 1 in 736 high school players today (0.14%) will eventually make it to the professional level in sports. And yet, 80% of American high school athletes think they can make it to that level. Ask many of those young people and they will say they play for “love of the game” first. But dollar signs are always in the back of their minds.

Which brings us back to journalists. Journalists are paid to write stories about the day’s events or offer analysis and opinion which will attract readership thus attracting those who wish to sell something to the already gathered eyeballs. In short, journalists are not paid to necessarily attract readers as much as they are supposed to contribute to the overall accuracy of what is being reported and the honesty of opinion offered thus upholding the integrity (or “brand”) of the publication.

The key word is integrity. And sadly, as I see it, many bloggers simply don’t have it, don’t want it, and refuse to consider it. The Blogospheric Model says that these people will lose in the long run because people will stop reading them. Oh really? Since I refuse to link to her, you will have to guess who I mean when I say one particular blogger’s stats skyrocketed after she not only refused to apologize for smearing Jill Carroll but had the gall to ask everyone else to apologize to her. This blogger suffers no consequences. And since this is not the first time this particular person has transgressed against decency and integrity in this fashion, and the fact that her blog continues to grow, it would seem to give the lie to the Blogospheric Model that everyone confidently predicted would be the “self correcting” mechanism that would make the blogosphere superior to the mainstream media.

I don’t buy it anymore. The blogger mentioned above is not the only individual with integrity issues in Blogland. The question is if the self-correcting model was worth anything, why are they still writing and attracting readers and links?

One might also consider that a mainstream press reporter making a similar error in judgement would have been fired and would have a hard time getting similar employment in the future. Does this mean that the mainstream press is still superior to blogs in this regard? Until I see some evidence to the contrary, I would have to say yes.

Of course the press has their own problems with bias and opinion masquerading as analysis and fact. How much of this is driven by a desire to adhere to a particular agenda and how much is sheer laziness is debatable. I would say that there is ample evidence that bias at the New York Times is driven by an anti-Republican, anti-Bush agenda to the detriment of news gathering and reporting. Is it a conscious manifestation of bias or an indication that the corporate culture at the Times is corrupt? It doesn’t matter because the effect is the same.

The taking down of Ben Domenech would not have occurred a decade ago. The way blogs jumped down the throat of Jill Carroll would probably not have occurred two years ago.

Anyone want to place any bets on what Blogland will look like this time next year?

Sheesh! My appearance on C-Span this morning brought the trolls out from underneath the bridge. Here are two of the more printable ones.

You are a scumbag wrote:
Hey assf**k, I’m watching you on CSPAN, and though I’ve never heard of you
before I think I can safely nominate you as one of the biggest walking infected
sphincters on the earth. When Helen Thomas takes a sh*t the stain she leaves in
the bowl has more knowledge, more integrity and higher intelligence than you
do. It most likely smells better than you as well.

Dear Your are a Scumbag:

I guess you didn’t count on a response otherwise you would have thought how your salutation would look being returned to you. Or maybe you just aren’t very smart and don’t think about anything much at all.

I must confess I didn’t know that sphincters could get infected. You must have had some experience with the malady.

As for the image of Ms. Thomas defecating, I congratulate you on having a better imagination than me.

And Helen leaving a stain in the bowl… Is this something you check on regularly or is it more of a once in a lifetime opportunity for you. If a regular occurence, I can understand why you might have a hard time differentiating smells.

Warmest Regards,

Me

Then there was this fellow who took issue with the Democrats calling Bush Hitler:

Bill Gardner wrote:
Saw your sorry ass on c-span this AM.When you started moaning about those nasty
libs comparing your hero to Hitler,that pretty little lady from Misouri sort of
broke it off in you didn’t she? Of course that is a bad comparison.Bushie is way
too f**kin dumb to be another Hitler.

Bill is a long time reader here and I’m glad he was able to catch the show this morning. I will first of all say that there is nothing sorry about my ass. It is, in fact, one of my better features as I receive compliments on it from both men and women, the men being more than generous. And since my ass could not be seen on TV, I wonder if you were able to procure that picture of me, Babs Streisand, and Helen Thomas cavorting in that pool of Lemon-Lime Jello from the Oscars party last month. If so, I would say nobody’s ass looks very good with whipped cream and little pieces of pinneapple dripping off of it.

As for your sexist comment regarding Ms. Marsh, (”little lady?” Tsk…Tsk…), please go to the Daily Kos website and using the search function put in “Bush + Hitler” and tell me what you find.

I would challenge you on your Hitler comparison but since you seem to be such an admirer of his, I’ll save you the aggravation.

Finally, there’s this gem:

BEN HASSEL wrote:
YOU MAKE FUN OF HELENS LOOKS,WHAT DOES YOUR MAMA LOOK LIKE?

Dear Ben:

Better than Helen. And she’s been dead for 6 years.