Chris Matthews: Still an Idiot

I'm watching Chris Matthews question some Illinois state legislators about the Blagojevich ouster. It's amazing such an utter fuckup is on a national cable network.

Matthews apparently can't compute what quid pro quo means. I realize he'll say he's playing devil's advocate, but he's not elucidating anything himself nor is he allowing others to elucidate. He repeats the same question to guest after guest for the whole program and never tries to understand the distinctions that each guest makes repeatedly. He listens then repeats the same question to a guest later, again ignoring any distinctions and not even trying to think through what they are saying. It's obvious he doesn't know what he's talking about and doesn't really care: the contempt for the viewer is pretty palpable ("The rubes will eat this "pox on pols" grandstanding!")

He interrupts constantly without adding anything, just to hear his own voice it seems. Interrupting is bad enough but it's even worse when it's done with remote interviewees, as Matthews does routinely. Chris, you friggin' idiot, people you are interviewing via satellite-- especially standing in an boomy government lobby of some sort--can't process your time-shifted echoe crosstalk as one can in person. I'm astounded people will appear via remote on Matthew's program, so incompetent is he.

Matthews does that kind of mechanical time-wasting shit CONSTANTLY, after years of broadcasting. Many episodes he wastes five or ten minutes of airtime with sloppiness an average community-college communications major would iron out in the first 2 video lab sessions. Matthews: don't interrupt people every second sentence, especially during a remote! (If they're filibustering that's one thing, but usually these people can't even finish a friggin' sentence.) If you occasionally have to interrupt, don't just rephrase your lame question du jour for the umpteenth time.

Clinically, Matthews is an idiot. He doesn't know the current politics of this country. He relies on his seriously out-of-date gut for analysis that was tiredly erroneous decades ago. He views politics almost solely as theater. He's incompetent as a broadcaster. He is lazy, apparently doing zero preparation for his shows, sometimes stumbling over the intros that others have written for him. (Calling your friends for gossip and chat you can't repeat on air is not preparation for a show-- it's just calling your coffee klatch for a pick-me-up.) He's politically juvenile. He's a puerile little twit.

Anyone who watches Matthews comes away knowing less about politics and policy than they did before.

Please, MSNBC, get rid of this guy. BBC America is stealing eyeballs from you with their national news broadcast because they don't radiate contempt for their viewers.

This is another in an ongoing series of screams about how awful Chris Matthews is.

Two "Lesser" Inaugural Songs

1) At Last (the song to which the Obamas performed their "first dance" at various balls.

Written in 1941 for a mostly forgotten musical "Orchestra Wives" and performed by Glenn Miller's Orchestra.

The version that strikes me as the version is Nat "King" Cole's 1957 recording. It was another time where Obama reminded me that the "mainstream" has long included African-American performers. But I recall, as maybe Obama does but probably most don't, that Cole was a very good straight-jazz pianist before he became known as the great singer we know him as now.

It's great that he's reminded me of not only Sam Cooke and Charlie Parker, but Louis Armstrong and now Nat "King" Cole.

Thanks, Obama.

2) In his inaugural address, Obama said: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

And that reminded me of a very old song I associate mainly with happy white-bread Depression-era tunesmiths: Start All Over Again.

To quote from the lyrics:

Nothing's impossible I have found,
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
Start All over again.

It's one of those keep your chin up Depression-era songs like "Pennies from Heaven," or "We're In the Money," or "Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries."

If Obama were an old-style Democratic politician, he might have referred to "Happy Days are Here Again." A good song in context, but there are other contexts to attend to.

I realize that some black performers have recorded "Start All Over Again," but to me, as a white guy who was born far past the Great Depression,that song is a mainstream white USA tune that speaks to the essence of what Obama is talking about:

• the current situation is as serious as a heart attack.
  
• We will have to perservere.
  
• We will have to try a few approaches before one ultimately works
  
• we have to recognize that common people are resilient but we are not a stepping stool for the well-heeled.

Much like his embedded and unheralded inaugural allusions to Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. and countless others, the songs he chooses say something about this country and about this western world.

And this tune is not a "white-bread American tune." It's merely an American song. An American tune.

These songs are good tunes. But they are not just good tunes-- they're more than that.

Welcome President Barack Obama. Godspeed to you and to us all.

George W Bush: Republican. Good Riddance.

Initially I thought I'd write a post detailing similarities between Count Arthur Strong and George W. Bush (believe me, there are plenty: hubridity, vainglory, near-Tourette's, utter lack of insight, meanness, idiocy, and more). But I like Count Arthur and do not want to sully him with the taint of Bush.

Instead, it's time to not only celebrate Bush leaving the Presidency, but to point out how much will not be leaving us: modern Republicanism. Bush is the distilled essence of Republicanism. (Even more than sainted Ronnie: Reagan raised taxes, for instance, and Bush held firm to his Republican roots and didn't.)

Bush will be soon be gone, thankfully. Republicans will blame him and not their philosopy for the stench he left over the country. But, in reality, he did mostly what they wanted, and got the country that we get from doing mostly what Republicans want.

• Shovel money to the rich.
  
• Do nothing to increase middle- and lower-class incomes.
  
• Continue to lower taxes even when the deficit explodes.
  
• Only worry about the deficit when the entire economy is on the line and we need to spend money to dig us out of the hole.
  
• Don't think through foreign crises with the brain: instead apply shibboleths about "toughness."
  
• Find some trivial culture war bullshit to yell about so you can whip up the base.
  
• Call a stupid person's stupidity "authenticity." Elevate that "authenticity" to a homespun instinct for dealing with big issues. (The fact that so many Republicans still revere Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber shows how deep this strain runs).

We will be rid of Bush very soon, thank God. We will have to deal with Republicanism for years to come. It's a pox on our country and I doubt we'll eliminate it. There's a good chance we won't even survive it.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, Bush. Republicanism: same tomorrow as it ever was.

Count Arthur Returns!

I must note that BBC Radio 4 has begun a new series of Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!

There are few things better.

When My Daughter Loved Me

In searching for a video of Randy Newman's song "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2, I found that someone had put together a youtube video of unrelated fuzzy-good images over the audio of the song. The youtube version didn't do much for me, especially since the person who put it up called it a "love song," which largely misses the point of the tune, especially in the flow of the movie.

But at least one commenter, motherseer, didn't forget the song's power in context of the movie.

Thank you for posting this beautiful video. My daughter and I saw Toy Story 2 together when she was little. It made both of us cry then, so sad for the little doll in the movie. Now that she's a teenager, this song still makes us both cry, for the loss of those little girl days. I've stayed the same, but she's moved on. And even though she loves me it's not the same total, uncritical, unconditional love; and oh, how I miss that sweet little girl. :o(

The multi-faceted pathos in that comment reflects in an Escherian way the song itself as part of the movie.

Thanks motherseer. And thanks, Randy Newman.

Ho-ho-homeopath joke

I know a homeopath-- he was very down, very depressed.

He tried to commit suicide with a massive underdose.

It seems like it must be an old joke but I first heard it today (and adapted it a bit) from Graeme Garden on the The Unbelievable Truth Christmas special.

Please note that I do not wish any homeopaths to take their own lives.

Fantasies of the Onion Staff

From recent issues of The Onion

• Bush Passes Three-Pound Kidney Stone
  
• Crocodile Bites Off Bush's Arm
  
• Bush Tumbles Wildly Down Washington Monument Staircase
  
• Bush's Eyelid Accidentally Nailed To Wall
  

President Bush is resting comfortably in Bethesda Naval Hospital.

More to come, probably, until President Dumbass Disaster is gone.

And, as a salute to The Onion's clairvoyance, a piece from 2001 about Bush's first inauguration, the amazingly prescient Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

Lion's Den

Zero-Down Mortgages: In the 2004 GOP Platform

Philip Klinker at PolySigh has a great find.

I see from various points of the blogosphere that the real reason for the financial meltdown is the push for more home loans in poor and minority communities, using impractical instruments like zero-down mortgages. Well, if that's the case, then the electorate should punish the party that had this in it's 2004 platform: [PDF]

Ownership should not be the preserve of the wealthy or the privileged. . . . [We] believe in the power of ownership to create better lives, we want more people to own a home. . . .

Homeownership is central to the American dream, and [we] want to make it a reality for everyone. That starts with access to capital for entrepreneurs and access to credit for consumers. Both have improved immensely in the past four years, resulting in record levels of homeownership. For the first time, more than half of all minorities own their home.

We support the . . . goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families by the end of the decade. Since . . . 2002, an additional 1.6 million minorities have become homeowners. The Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program helps low-income families purchase a home. The most significant barrier to homeownership is the down payment. We support efforts to reduce that barrier, like the American Dream
Downpayment Act and Zero Downpayment Mortgages.

I heard Orrin Hatch blame Bill Cinton for the current market mess. Well, read that and weep, Orrin. A hell of a lot of taxpayers and (ex-)home-owners sure are weeping now, thanks to the GOP.

---
Edited 9/11/2012 to change the dead link to the 2004 GOP platform and point it to a live one at archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20080216000618/http://www.gop.com/images/2004platform.pdf

Mexico, Venezuela, Spain.... What's the difference?

They're all in Latin America, so they all speak Latin, right?

Who gives an interview to a foreign reporter without knowing the name of the top couple leaders there?

Yikes.

Foreign Policy at the Local Level

Preemptive thievery during the Republican convention. The thief stole according to the victim's principles:

Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.

"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money....."

She took him at his word: knocked him out with a mickey, swiped $120,000 worth of valuables, and planted the flag of "Gabriel Nathan Schwartz is an idiot" on his nekkid winky.

Also, why does a single 29-year old man have expensive earrings and a necklace in his hotel room?

UPDATE: Wonkette has much more and better snark, and includes a video of an interview with Gabriel Nathan Schwartz. The video really is vile. He is the face of today's Republican party: "Lower taxes and more wars," blind belligerance, and nasty nasty whoring behind closed doors.

What a douchebag is Gabriel Schwartz.

Douthat,: Self-confessed Liar

Andrew Sullivan notes that Ross Douthat thinks outright lying is fine. This makes Douthat what people know as "a liar," and everything else he says is now, by his own admission, suspect.

Funny how these supposedly high-minded "Grand New Party" writers reveal themselves as the same old type of Republican hack. Makes it pretty apparent that the thesis of Grand New Party isn't really an idea for the Republican Party to change paths, but just to "win elections and govern the country in accordance with whatever goals led you into the arena in the first place...."

Goals which, if it's expedient, you should lie about in order to sucker the rubes to vote for you, so you can still serve the plutocrats.

I suppose every Douthat comment can now be addressed with "Is that a lie? If it's not, it really wouldn't matter to you though, right?"

Brooks Reads Books! He's an Elitist!

David Brooks writes slitheringly about what a bad leader Sarah Palin could be, but backhands and backtracks through the whole enterprise.

He casts the Palin pick as an argument about elites versus "common-sense folks," while referring to "summered in Tuscany," "repertoire," "utopian," "egalitarianism," the "Federalist Papers" (do they sell those papers at WalMart?), and those who apparently sneer at "Wal-Mart."

And after all that Brooks seems to approach, but never firmly arrive at the view that picking Sarah Palin as potentially the 45th President of the United States is not the best idea in the history of the republic. I take away from Brooks that educated people disagree (using arguments that Sarah Palin has shown no evidence of understanding) about whether Sarah Palin has the capacity to effectively lead the country beginning in 2009.

But David Brooks, an educated elite writing for educated elites in elevated prose, won't write a declarative sentence stating whether he believes she's capable or not.

A plutocrat like Brooks won't even say what he really thinks. How amazing that he's just another Republican hack rather than someone concerned about the governance and the future of this great nation.

I'm pretty certain I've shopped at WalMart more than David Brooks. I've even bought vienna sausages at Walmart--vastly more than I'd guess David Brooks has.

As a vienna sausage buying Walmart shopper and therefore (according to Brooks' shorthand), not an elitist, I can authentically state emphatically that I think Sarah Palin would be a terrible head of state.

And I can write that in prose much unlike Brooks' fumbling, elite prose. Like this: "If Sarah Palin becomes President next year, it would be a disaster for the United States."

David Brooks - Why Experience Matters

Still, he's better than William Kristol. Thanks, New York Times for employing people who will not tell us what they really think lest it hurt the Republican chances in November.

Also, watch and wait for Brooks to swing 180 degrees and become an enthusiastic Palin suppoter if she manages to get through a debate without televised projectile vomiting.

Pillocks.

Irrelevant Image

Queen Elizabeth I on a pogo stick!

Simon Munnery in Stewart Lee's   Late But Live  at Edinburgh, 2008.

Serious Republican Thinkers

Reihan Salam (writer, with Douthat, of "Grand New Party"), reveals that the Grand Old Party is really what they want--but maybe with a telegenic new face.

I'm not surprised. I've heard a few interviews with both guys and it's obvious that, underneath that tissue of pseudo-depth is a vast sea of hackery.

This is the "serious" wing of the Republican Party noise machine.

Politics In Depth

i just ran across quite a good blog that's not well known. Gerry Canavan.

This image alone should elevate him to the pantheon: Gerry Canavan: American Politics (in chart form)

Edgar Wright — A Bit More Interesting

Edgar Wright -- director and co-writer of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, talks at length with Elvis Mitchell of KCRW's The Treatment, about the surpassingly entertaining TV comedy from the UK, Spaced.

Edgar Wright — The Treatment -- KCRW

Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson-Hynes, and Edgar Wright will be making great things for years to come. Hear about it here.

Something

Since I helped the Alaska government with server problems last week, I figured I'd post an update about the Richter divorce papers:

Alaskans fed up as press floods area -Vogel

Vogel is probably right that the Richter papers weren't what the National Enquirer was speaking of.

I'll grant him that.

Alaska Records of Palins' Ex-business Partner

For some reason, after Andrew Sullivan posted that Sarah and Todd Palin's former business partner had filed an emergency motion to seal the divorce records, the alaska courts website he linked to went down.

As a public service, I'll mirror that information here. First a screenshot of the page (whatever navigational and decorative images on the page didn't load), then as a paste of the text content.

For John McCain, who says he's interested in "transparency in government," you're welcome.
Click above image to enlarge. Text is pasted below. Captured Fri, Sep 05, 2008, around noon EST.
+++++

Docket Search

3PA-07-01581CI In the Matter of: Richter, Scott Alan and Richter, Deborah Marie

Search Criteria
Docket Desc.
Begin Date Sort
End Date Ascending
Descending
Search Results 21 Docket(s) found matching search criteria.
Docket Date Docket Text Amount Amount Due Images

09/04/2008 Order Denying Motion Case Motion #3: Motion to Make Case File Confidential 0.00 0.00

09/03/2008 Motion to Make Case File Confidential Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); Case Motion #3 0.00 0.00
09/03/2008 Motion for Expedited Consideration of: Motion to Make Case File Confidential Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Case Motion #2 0.00 0.00
05/19/2008 Notice to Employer Re: Children's Medical Insurance Deborah Marie Richter (Co-Petitioner); 0.00 0.00

05/19/2008 Cust/Spprt/Visit Modified. Case Closed. (no motion link) 0.00 0.00

05/19/2008 Order Granting Stipulation Case Motion #1: Standard Motion 0.00 0.00
04/03/2008 Stipulated Agreement for Child Support and Parenting Agreement Attorney: Pro per (0100001) Case Motion #1 0.00 0.00

04/03/2008 Case Reopened 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Child Support Order 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Decree of Dissolution Granted 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Shared Custody Child Support Calculation 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Amendment of Agreement 0.00 0.00

09/18/2007 Hearing Result: Hearing Held The following event: Dissolution Hearing w/Children scheduled for 09/18/2007 at 3:20 pm has been resulted as follows: Result: Hearing Held Judge: Zwink, David L Location: Palmer Courthouse 0.00 0.00

08/14/2007 Civil Deficiency Memo mailed re: agreement re retirement benefits and last quarterly statements of same; specifics of shared custody agreement. 0.00 0.00

08/14/2007 Hearing Set Event: Dissolution Hearing w/Children Date: 09/18/2007 Time: 3:20 pm Judge: Zwink, David L Location: Palmer Courthouse Result: Hearing Held 0.00 0.00

08/02/2007 Affidavit/Scheduling of Hearing Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Certificate of Completion of Viewing "Listen to the Children" Video Scott Alan Richter (Petitioner); Deborah Marie Richter (Co-Petitioner); 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Information Sheet 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 VS401 Certificate of Absolute Divorce or Dissolution 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Proposed Child Support Order Submitted Prior to Hearing 0.00 0.00

07/24/2007 Petition for Dissolution of Marriage (With Children) Receipt: 268635 Date: 07/24/2007 150.00 0.00

Reformer with Results

John McCain George Bush is running as a refomer!

Yay, four more years of fake Republican "reform."