Month: October 2007

A reader writes:

You make the same mistake in your judgment of the Daily Show as many of your ilk.  The Daily Show has been less about attacking the administration as it is a commentary on the sorry state of the main stream media.  The Daily Show was funny before the Bush administration and it will be funny after because pundits and pols are here to stay.

I am aware that my ilk is parodied relentlessly on the Daily Show. But somehow I think Jon Stewart will not be quite as exercized when we’re shilling for Hillary.

Josh Green crunches the numbers on Stephen Colbert’s presidential run in South Carolina and judges that his best bet is with the Republicans. Who will suffer the most from Colbert’s entrance into the race? Drum roll, please:

I put Ron Paul in a separate category of "protest candidate," but he should be sweating, too. Paul’s supporters are among the most passionate and committed this cycle. But their profile is similar to that of  the voters Colbert might attract. (“Pot smokers,” a Republican consultant called them.) Anonymous presidential advisor: “If Colbert wants to do it he’s got to convert every young, semi-liberal Ron Paul supporter to the Colbert cause. If a young white male is going to vote, watches Comedy Central, and is internet savvy, chances are he’s a Ron Paul supporter.”

Suddenly my own demographic comes alarmingly into focus. Between Colbert and Paul, I really don’t know which way to turn.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned. Cheney October 2003:

Last November, the U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences in the event Saddam Hussein did not fully and immediately comply. When Saddam Hussein failed even then to comply, our coalition acted to deliver those serious consequences.

Cheney yesterday:

The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences. The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Greg Djerejian worries, as well he might. Here’s the casus belli the Decider may well have already made the Decision on. Not just the nukes, but Iraq:

Perhaps the greatest strategic threat that Iraq’s Shiites face today in — is — in consolidating their rightful role in Iraq’s new democracy is the subversive activities of the Iranian regime. The Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is the defender of the theocracy. The regime has used the Quds Force to provide weapons, money, and training to terrorists and Islamic militant groups abroad, including Hamas; Palestinian Islamic Jihad; militants in the Balkans; the Taliban and other anti-Afghanistan militants; and Hezbollah terrorists trying to destabilize Lebanon’s democratic government.

The Iranian regime’s efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power is a matter of record.

(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty.)

An eye-brow-raising analogy from Chris Dickey, son of the man who wrote the novel and the screenplay of "Deliverance". Money quote:

In the end, though, it is not the übermensch who offers deliverance from the nasty, brutish horrors of the river and the men of the forest. It is the perfectly ordinary man, the just-getting-by guy, Ed Gentry (Jon Voight), who transcends himself to survive. He is not inspired by a vision of the future, he does not aspire to be tested by man and nature. He’s motivated by fear, pure and simple, and his desire to return to his normal life without that fear.

In the early parts of the story, Ed thinks Lewis is a little nuts, but he’s fascinated by the idea that Lewis might be right about—something—he’s not sure what. Obsessions like those of Lewis Medlock can create their own charisma, inspiring fear while pretending to resist it. Untested ersatz fortitude often looks impressive. The other businessmen from Atlanta, the soft-spoken Drew (Ronny Cox) and porcine Bobby (Ned Beatty), think Lewis is a lot nuts. In fact, they think he’s dangerous. And they’re right.

Me, I think Lewis is Vice President Dick Cheney’s closet fantasy of himself, and as such, a sort of model for the Bush administration as a whole. And Ed, he’s about the rest of us, just scared and trying to get by. And the river? That’s the war in Iraq.

A Polish woman is seen in a voting booth as she reads the candidate names during the parlimentary elections at a polling station in the village of Glinianka, central Poland, 21 October 2007. By Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty. AP reports on the Bush-supporting Christianist government’s demise at the polls:

A pro-business opposition party that wants to bring Poland’s troops home from Iraq was headed to an overwhelming victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, exit polls showed, setting it up to oust the prime minister’s staunchly pro-U.S. government.

It would be a stinging defeat for Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose conservative Law and Justice party was elected two years ago and has since been criticized for its combative approach to the European Union and efforts to purge former communists from positions of influence.

We know he has entertained many of them on the left, but this time, he has reached out to one of the more notoriously homophobic ones on the right. More about Donnie McClurkin here. I guess if you’ve become that needful of black votes, you’re going to have to lose a few gay ones.

If this doesn’t get Glenn Reynolds all worked up, I don’t know what will. Available on both sides of the bed!:

Jon Stewart has just signed up for more Daily Shows and his online presence is now even fancier. But is his clout peaking? My take on the extraordinary influence of the best hour of satire on television:

This moment will pass, of course. One gets a sense that it may be peaking already. For satire to work well, it has to let off the collective steam of a nation. It needs a po-faced, Cheney-style establishment to mock. As the religion-drenched era of Republican hegemony wanes a little, the satirists begin to become part of the establishment themselves. Colbert’s presidential run may be a step too far. Perhaps, in retrospect, these last, ragged months of the Bush administration will come to seem the high-water mark of the Colbert-Stewart tide. But it’s been a joy while it’s lasted.

A swipe from the Left. My related thoughts here.