CURRENT WISDOM
Jackasses, Assorted
CURRENT WISDOM New York Times Maureen Dowd sends America a communiquéfrom one of the "cool" girls of the '60s—who apparently still resides in that remote decade: Just how much did Karl Rove hate...
...All I can think, with much resignation, is I'm glad that I won't need to get an abortion...
...CURRENT WISDOM New York Times Maureen Dowd sends America a communiquéfrom one of the "cool" girls of the '60s—who apparently still resides in that remote decade: Just how much did Karl Rove hate not being one of the cool guys in high school in the 60s...
...Because it would only be a matter of time before you guys would be so screwed, I cannot tell you...
...I guess we'll all survive, but I don't think we will thrive...
...September 2004) Guardian From the United Kingdom, sudorific commentary by the hitherto unknown Charlie Brooker, who upon watching our debonair President in debate, reveals his belief that a child's "first bowel movement" is somewhat on the order of an adolescent's first seduction, and that there is value to be found in the works of the men who killed Abraham Lincoln and John E Kennedy: Each time he recalls a statistic (either from memory or the voice in his head), he flashes us a dumb little smile, like a toddler proudly showing off its first bowel movement...
...John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr.—where are you now that we need you...
...Where does the "new" man begin...
...Enough to hatch schemes to marshal the forces of darkness to take over the country...
...Oh, yeah...
...Reagan's closest advisers were sincerely interested in protecting the President as well as the Presidency, they would recognize that he is not up to running the White House for four more years...
...October 6, 2004) New York Times Thus does the venerable Times solemnize the passing of one of the Old Order's grande mediocrities, an oaf who became a conspiracy theorist even before Senator Hillary Clinton's arcane findings: Pierre Salinger, the debonair, half-French investigative reporter who became famous as John F. Kennedy's White House press secretary at the height of the cold war and went on to work as a prize-winning television correspondent for ABC News in Europe, died Saturday at a hospital near his home in Le Thor, France...
...August 18, 1984) The Nation A scholar at the redoubtable Nation takes the long view: No leader of a Western empire since Frederick Barbarossa has courted the church as deliberately and assiduously as Ronald Reagan...
...I already have health insurance and, God willing, will have a decent job for a while so that some day I can save money as I don't think Social Security will be good for much...
...The liberal left has been attached to actors like Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson...
...They spoke to our cynicism and to our baffled idealism...
...DEBORAH TREJO (November 4, 2004) In These Times The civil libertarians over at ITT in the course of reviewing a film on the life of Che Guevara reveal their vision of the Great Man, "Che," presumably before his torturers and jailers moved in: Part of the appeal of studying the lives of great men and women is finding those defining points in their lives where events and circumstances resonate with an unexpected clarity and inspire them to rise up and do extraordinary work...
...Average Americans are being screwed...
...This time it looks like "we" elected President Bush...
...So, I hate scare tactics, but I really believe that that's true...
...Bummer...
...Most of the time the right wing's real motivations are hidden under the populism of a cowboy hat, or in the fine print of books about the free market...
...The 'haves' and the 'have-mores: Some people call you the 'elite.' I call you my base...
...Yet what is the effect on the misogelastic reporter from AmPros...
...November 7, 2004) Austin American-Statesman 7tvo days after the electorate bath spoken, lachrymose sentiments swell up on the cosmopolitan pages of a famous Longhorn gazette: Well, it seems the country continues to move to the right...
...His mind turns to copulation, and not copulation of the entertaining sort either: At a high-society dinner during the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush looked out on the audience and joked, "This is an impressive crowd...
...Films often pass over such quieter early milestones and head straight for the charge up San Juan The film adaptation of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries departs from this trend...
...Chin up...
...September 8, 1984) DECEMBER 2004/JANUARY 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 85...
...October 23, 2004) Drudge Report A high-level communiqué from Miss Cher, to her followers, just days before the Bush junta captures her microphone, and amputates her high heels: All the gay guys, all my friends, all my gay friends, you guys you have got to vote, all right...
...They would urge him to withdraw before the election (rather than after it, as some observers predict he is likely to do...
...Hope is not on the way anytime soon...
...He was 79...
...In just what kind of condition are the American people...
...October 23, 2004) Los Angeles City Beat Belles-lettres as practiced by Ron Garmon, future speechwriter for President Jean-Francois Kerry: Sometime after Barry Goldwater perished in a welter of upper cuts and bloodspray in the 1964 election, the moneyed right decided it was the commie-dominated news media what waxed their paladin, and the American people wouldn't get fooled again...
...On November 2, the entire civilized world will be praying, praying Bush loses...
...October 18, 2004) From the Archives Timeless Tosh From Current Wisdoms Past: New York Times John B. Oakes, once a Senior Editor of the venerable Times, solemnly proffers some public-spirited counsel to the GOB two days before its national convention and while the Republic still has time: If Mr...
...I think we know that many of our neighbors and traditional allies are amazed at our isolationist, conservative tendencies...
...He'll probably end up mostly in pull-out classes full of emotionally disturbed children instead of with normally developing children with support staff for him...
...Because, you know, the people, like, in the very right wing of this party, of these Republicans, the very very right wing, in the Jerry Falwell element, if they get any more power, you guys are going to be living in some state by yourselves...
...A quick look at our movie stars gives a hint...
...Now, we have the apotheosis of Arnold Schwarzenegger...
...November 4, 2004) The American Prospect Our suave President sallies forth with another joyously self-effacing witticism, putting Americans everywhere in mind of Bob Hope at his best or Jay Leno...
...If, however, the Republican Party does succeed in propping him up through the election, and if this is the kind of President the American people choose, then we should be singing in the next four years not "God Bless America" but Gold help America...
...But the American center moved their loyalties from the decency of Gary Cooper to the grit and self-approval of John Wayne...
...And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all...
...The slow public death of Richard Nixon occasioned the forced wedding of these two forces after a long, coy flirtation...
...October 25, 2004) New York Review of Books In discoursing upon the election and `America's future," a solemn Norman Mailer beholds Arnold and offers what else...
...Who, then, are we...
...Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is nearing retirement and how long can he wait for America to swing back to the center...
...I guess I've already spent time in the American wilderness so I supposeit's not the end of the world that they'll drill in Alaska and shoot the wolves, that there will be precious little ancient forests left, that our water and air will probably get dirtier, that we'll keep losing governmental infrastructure and place more burden on nonprofits, that mass transit will not dramatically increase, that we'll continue to wage wars in foreign lands while insufficiently funding our public education and public health systems...
...The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us...
...At about this time, conservative publicists, angered by the Civil Rights Act, resurgent feminism, and suchlike signs of nation head unsticking from ass, were whooping up the white male "working class" backlash that continues to this hour...
...We should give him credit: It is a rare occasion when a conservative politician admits who calls the shots, even in jest...
...How is greatness formed...
...I guess my son with Down's Syndrome can muddle through the education system without sufficient special ed support...
...He captured convention honors at the Garden in the course of informing America, via the physicality of his presence, that should the nation ever come to such a dire pass as to need a dictator, why, bless us all, he, Arnold, can offer the best chin to come along since Benito Mussolini...
...84 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 2004/JANUARY 2005 CURRENT WISDOM But what is happening in this country is no laughing matter...
Vol. 37 • December 2004 • No. 10
