We're All In The Same Gang AKA Friends Of Priviledge Stick Together In All But The Fairest Weather
Say them with me loyal MLWL readers, the juicy tabbo words of modern political discourse are priviledge and class. In the wake of Jon Stewart's incredible appearance on Crossfire, alot of the political press has come out to show their true colors. Don't be fooled, no matter what sides or spins people in the major media claim to take, they're all in the same clique with the same vested interests: elite liberal arts schools, internships at Yale and the NY Times and the same safety nets of upper class family money. At the end of the day, the liberal from the Washington Post, the conservative from Fox and the non-partisan lobbyist for a major corporation will all dine together for $70 a plate at La Brasserie in DC. James Carville goes to bed with Mary Matalin (and bounces from helping Clinton to crushing Hugo Chavez without a second thought). Wonkette has her old friends at the CJR, is married to someone at the Washington Monthly and can chummingly call up Tucker Carlson on her cell phone. No one in the press will rightly call for Robert Novak's imprisonment. There are no outsiders. Maybe that's why so many in the media find Jon Stewart such a nuisance. He's out of the Beltway, not from their web of private-schools and pulled-strings and he gets the respect and ratings that they don't. When an outsider crashes the party, the little club will band together to defend their turf. Witness this little blurb by Wonkette and her petty smearing of Stewart as someone who is "auditioning for the position of assistant professor of journalism at Blue State Junior College." It's just so embarrassing when someone forgets to affect their bored Beltway malaise and hack it up like the sycophantic AP students that they once were and continue to be. The fact of the matter is that the only credentials a journalist needs is intelligence and articulation. One can hope that journalism could become a simple trade judged by the journalists own work, like it was a few decades ago, and not the guilded treefort it is.
Britons Justified In Fearing Spiders More Than Terrorists A new documentary is coming out on BBC2 that suggests dirty bombs would be less deadly than they are thought to be and that al-Qaeda is more of a foggy notion than an organized terrorist hit squad. This American is left to wonder just why the BBC would hate freedome and liberty so much.
Falafel Fall-Out Fox is already making moves to fire the woman who has accused Bill O'Reilly of sexual harrassment, and adding insult to injury, wants a judge to declare that it isn't retribution for her lawsuit. Let's hope they have the same legal fortune they did when suing Al Franken.
Falafel Fall-Out II In his column for Beliefnet, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, like most conservative pundits is quick to preach about personal responsibility and the neccessary of believing in "right" and "wrong." Like most conservative pundits, when one of his own falls from grace, Boteach falls over himself turning into an instant moral relativist, giving O'Reilly as many excuses as he can. ("It's not his fault! It's Britney Spears, Sex in the City and Victoria's Secret!") Fun spectator sport for the rest of Falafelgate: watch those who screamed themselves hoarse over Monica Lewinsky backpeddle like a dyslexic cyclist trying to justify O'Reilly's dirty-ass self.
I Don't Know, Totally Sounds Like A Bit Of Bad Luck To Me
Osama P. Bin-Laden Riding Coach I don't know what to be frightened of more: the scary Homeland Security measures that take away civil liberties, or how hopeless those measures are when it comes to stopping terrorism in the real world. Case in point: after the heroic capture of mass-murderer Cat Stevens it has come out that the "no-fly list" can't keep tabs on alternate spellings of foreign names and in some cases is faked out by the addition of a middle initial.
30 Years Of Good Fun, Absolute Lack Of Contact With Girls Happy Birthday D&D!
-The Sikh Geek, getting it all out of his system
