I'm Rubber, You're Glue
It would be so much easier for me if I just learned to follow the prevailing modus operandi--take my biggest problems and then act like everyone else had those problems instead. ("The world is so lazy, wasting so much of its time blogging and being consumed with its fantasy baseball team," I think. OK, that doesn't really make me feel any better.)
Take the whole Mary Cheney flap. (See, the Republicans probably think I just made a nasty sexual slur.) Who has done squat for gay and lesbian rights for their whole term in office? It was Bush who said this in debate 3, "And I also know in a free society people, consenting adults can live the way they want to live. And that's to be honored," right before he re-affirmed his call for an Amendment to the Constitution that says those consenting adults can't live married, even if they want to. It seems he missed Civics that day the teacher talked about how the first ten Amendments are called the Bill of Rights.
Now the BC04 team calls Kerry the horrible person for pointing out that the out Mary Cheney is out and that her parents love her. Jeez.
We got to see the same thing with the already much-ballyhooed appearance by Jon Stewart on Crossfire. (Read the transcipt here or watch the interview here, but you have to sit through ads, sorry.) Stewart refused to play the game, and didn't just shoot for yucks and push his book America, since the business of televison is business, of course. (And a side note: America is number 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, probably the first #1 to include nude pictures of Supreme Court justices--one of the funniest, grossest things I've ever seen. I always thought Clarence Thomas was trying to overcompensate for something.) Instead, Stewart called out Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for hosting a faker news program than his own Daily Show. Not surprisingly, the CNN duo turned on him, cutting him off when he tried to explain, accusing Stewart of lobbing softball questions to Kerry, and, sin of entertainment sins, not being funny on their show. It was splendidly uncomfortable television, for it's so rare someone won't play the game (for the complete opposite approach, think of Kerry relishing reading that Top Ten Bush Tax Proposals list on David Letterman, say).
But if you don't play the game, they will try to punish you. Part of that is to call you all the things that they are. Turns out the root of the word hypocrite goes back to the Greek hupokrites, meaning actor. Begala and Carlson aren't newsmen, but they play them on TV. And Bush isn't president, he just plays one in the White House.
We can change that, you know.
(Assuming the Electoral College and Diebold and Jeb Bush and Jim Tobin and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Voters Outreach of America let us.)
I just depressed myself again. (But how about that Carlos Beltran?)
Take the whole Mary Cheney flap. (See, the Republicans probably think I just made a nasty sexual slur.) Who has done squat for gay and lesbian rights for their whole term in office? It was Bush who said this in debate 3, "And I also know in a free society people, consenting adults can live the way they want to live. And that's to be honored," right before he re-affirmed his call for an Amendment to the Constitution that says those consenting adults can't live married, even if they want to. It seems he missed Civics that day the teacher talked about how the first ten Amendments are called the Bill of Rights.
Now the BC04 team calls Kerry the horrible person for pointing out that the out Mary Cheney is out and that her parents love her. Jeez.
We got to see the same thing with the already much-ballyhooed appearance by Jon Stewart on Crossfire. (Read the transcipt here or watch the interview here, but you have to sit through ads, sorry.) Stewart refused to play the game, and didn't just shoot for yucks and push his book America, since the business of televison is business, of course. (And a side note: America is number 1 on The New York Times bestseller list, probably the first #1 to include nude pictures of Supreme Court justices--one of the funniest, grossest things I've ever seen. I always thought Clarence Thomas was trying to overcompensate for something.) Instead, Stewart called out Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for hosting a faker news program than his own Daily Show. Not surprisingly, the CNN duo turned on him, cutting him off when he tried to explain, accusing Stewart of lobbing softball questions to Kerry, and, sin of entertainment sins, not being funny on their show. It was splendidly uncomfortable television, for it's so rare someone won't play the game (for the complete opposite approach, think of Kerry relishing reading that Top Ten Bush Tax Proposals list on David Letterman, say).
But if you don't play the game, they will try to punish you. Part of that is to call you all the things that they are. Turns out the root of the word hypocrite goes back to the Greek hupokrites, meaning actor. Begala and Carlson aren't newsmen, but they play them on TV. And Bush isn't president, he just plays one in the White House.
We can change that, you know.
(Assuming the Electoral College and Diebold and Jeb Bush and Jim Tobin and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Voters Outreach of America let us.)
I just depressed myself again. (But how about that Carlos Beltran?)
posted by George at 5:28 PM
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