Now, of all the prominent and quasi-prominent conservative talk show hosts and bloviators (whose job it is to fill three or four hours a day filling airtime to an audience nodding their head in agreement, and I guess a side audience of people shaking their head and gaping)…

… I despise Sean Hannity the most.  The phrase “The Whole of their Being” comes to mind with him.  I detect no stray thought deviating from the Conservative or GOP movement.  Say what you want about Beck, at least he’ll tap some Bircher source or other, and did not fully join the Scott Brown victory celebration.  And I can go down the list of the others and explain why they’re relatively (key word there) more original than Hannity.

There’s a particular “Wait.  What?” with this one.

During a panel discussion on the February 3 edition of Fox News’ Hannity, Bush White House communications director Nicolle Wallace asserted that Obama is “out of touch with what’s going on, on the streets of this country.” At the end of the segment, Hannity stated: “George Bush, who you worked for, did not play golf while this country was at war. … [H]e didn’t want the families of loved ones serving — or that may have lost a loved one — seeing him on a golf course. He seemed to be far more in touch.”

It’s as though the Liberals and Conservatives just passed off their batons for anti-administration memes on January 21 of last year, without a second thought on mixed messages.  By which I mean, Hannity would probably instinctively shake his head and dismiss a reference to Michael Moore airing the clip of Bush saying “Now watch this drive”, but that it’s been popularized by Michael Moore reaches to an increased point — if we are going to settle into one broad two sided partisan jabbing, I think everyone needs to have a grasp of the other side’s meme: this quotation from Hannity would be like the liberals not knowing the whole “reliance on teleprompter” thang.

Meanwhile, the word is coming out.  The Democrats are doing a disservice in “bashing Bush”, referencing the current perils of the Economy and the country at large and pointing back to the Bush Administration.  Funny thing about that, the economic recession in 2002 was always referred to by them as “the Clinton Recession”, and 9/11 was blamed right on Bush.  One’s rationalizing partisan politicking; the other is rational analysis.  Never the twain may mix.

I ran into this news story today, on GOP prospects and hopes that 2010 will be like 1994.  A very odd little phrase jumped out at me as a little false.

One wild card this year is the Tea Party movement, with its talk of “Sovereignty: The 10th Amendment” and “Put Ronnie on the Rock,” a reference to putting Ronald Reagan’s face on Mount Rushmore. Organizers say there are no plans of turning the movement into an actual political party and it will remain loosely organized.

“We have more to gain than lose by working with the Tea Party,” GOP Chairman Esser said.

“Put Ronnie on the Rock” is a tenant of the Tea Party movement?
I go to google news.  I look the phrase up to see this discussion of “Put Ronnie on the Rocks”.  I see this news article.  No other.

I go to google blogs.  I look the phrase up to see the discussion of “Put Ronnie on the Rocks”.  I see bump and kis.

I look up on google.  I see a bad personal website (not that there’s anything wrong with that) with vacation photos — and I am at a loss as to whether they are promoting sticking that Ronnie up on Mt Rushmore.  And once upon a time, someone chimed in on this message board with

MSNBC – Race & Ethnicity message board – How would everyone feel …

If I may say something about this interesting little cover story in this week’s Willamette Week?  It’s an interesting piece about local gadflys of causes meaningful and not meaningful.

This?

Individual insurrection in America dates back to the 18th century and Thomas Paine, and stretches to Howard Zinn, who died last week at 87. The author of the 1980 classic A People’s History of the United States, Zinn debunked the official narrative of U.S. history by popularizing the hidden truths about this nation’s founding.

In honor of Zinn, we’ve brought together vignettes about the Portland area’s most relentless citizen watchdogs: the men and women who set out each day to puncture the established version of the news by hounding everyone from the Portland Water Bureau to Multnomah County Animal Services.

This strikes me as a bit pretentious and someting of a reach.  Really, I think they just kind of siphoned Zinn at the last minute to a story in production.

I’ve been watching a lot of old Letterman and Conan bits via youtub.  A handful of Carson bits as well.  I decided to edge back and read the press on the unveiling of the various competitors against Carson — beginning, I guess, with Les Crane, initial entry in the “show molded to fit wider audience” problem.*

An observation for Team Coco.  Watch this Conan montage, aired during his his going away toward the end of his 12:30 run, of “Robots, Bears, and Lincolns”  and three things about Conan at play.  First of all, why the initial reviews of Conan were so very brutal — and there is something weirdly disporportionate about the reviews to the thought that in the wee hours of the night / morning, something a tad ameturish and not fully formed was being produced.  But also wrapped up there, is how he found his audience for the night.  The thing that confronted the tv reviewer was that here was something that Conan was trying to do, but not quite suceeding yet — which on first glance to a lot of people just seemed to suggest that he wasn’t really doing anything.  But surely, that audience came in to this dead of night, outside the prying eyes of normal society.  By the third year, the line on Conan was that “Conan is the new Dave” — that hip energetic television sensation that is more fun than sleep.  But, I have to say, I am sick of hearing the word “edgy” to describe Conan O’brien — which denotes an item of offensiveness that does not pass muster here — perhaps jagged fits better, maybe?

Then the question comes when moving to that 11:30 time-slot.  How do you adjust around with a bigger budget and stage with the need to bring in a broader audience, for the time slot that is less “appointment (and narrower reach) television” as 12:30 is and a broader “tune out and fade to sleep” time slot?  The Robots, Bears, and Lincolns had to go.  I guess the Bears had been whittled down to “The Masturbating Bear” anyway — brought on for a quick show at 11:30 just because he was brought back in the news due to the claims of “Intellectual Property Rights” by NBC and as an odd little suggestion that — well, Jay’s going to host The Tonight Show again, but it’s a Tonight Show that once had on… The Masturbating Bear, so, really…

Watching old Letterman clips, I’m remembering that he was once far more entertaining.  That being said, I hold the corralary rule to the statement that “Band X’s old stuff was better “– yes, true, but what is worse than “Band X’s” old stuff is the sound of Band X if they were trying too hard to just duplicate their old stuff.  I guage Letterman as slumping a few years into his 11:30 CBS run, regaining some panache some years later.  For instance, in his evolution, he’s brought in new angles — for instance, he’s gone to a bit of Jack Paar with prominent politicians as guests and questions more meaningful than usual talk show banter.  I can ascribe this to a certain theory of Dave’s neurosis to performance: He lost it when his ratings fell to Jay, and found some perspective at his triple by-pass surgery.  Maybe.

Leno.  The toruble with Leno’s 10 o’clock “experiment” comes through, I think, in the Jimmy Kimmell knock of his “10 at 10” appearance.  Jay Leno worked ratings for the ratings level demand for 11:30, and the peculiar watching habit of 11:30.  Fade to sleep with a perfectly mainstream vehicle for the most broadly popular stars to plug their latest projects.  Pluck this in to 10 o’clock.  They apparently brought Jimmy Kimmel in for a go around of perfectly irrelevant, safe, non-confrontational or controversial questions.  “Junk Food weakness!”  10 o’clock demands higher ratings than 11:30, and Jay’s formula for 11:30 can arrive at the ratings desired for that slot, but not much broader.  You can’t round the edges any further before there is left no trace of definition.

I do not really know what the perfect vehicle for Conan is at this point.  I suppose he’ll have that Fox television show, quite possibly.  It would not churning into that vehicle for “Robots, Bears, and Lincolns” as his 12:30 show was, nor the show business revue demands of an LA Tonight Show.  Nor can it be afraid to slide somewhere to third in the ratings.

* Fun fact.  In 1967, Carson had quit the Tonight Show (as it turned out, temporarily), prompting some contract negotiations from NBC.  Joey Bishop, a former fill in host for Carson, had set up a talk show on ABC, and on the night Carson returned he had on as his guest … Jack Paar.  Negative quote found here — go down to “Paar mentioned an article about Johnny Carson”.

This comment popped up today on an old blog post explaining a Russian nutcase professor.

clayton Says:
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:44 am
The date is February 1, 2010. Igor Panarin said that if civil war did not break out in November 2009, then he would have a ready answer.
So far I have not found it. Is there one?

Wait!  Wait!  The power of looking into the blogosphere presents us with ideas.

Let’s start with this, which actually somehow puts the date at January 31.

I would put nothing past the narcissistic pathological lying Comrade Obama who is an antichrist if there ever was one.

We’re talking about the biggest enemy America has ever fought in its history, THE ENEMY WITHIN, whose idea of national security is to make easier for our enemies both foreign and domestic to destroy America!

One thing that I DO KNOW, is that Obama, in creating the chaos necessary for despots to succeed, is INTENTIONALLY bankrupting the country in order to consolidate his power over every aspect of our lives! And that should get the attention of what’s left of the sane in this country who are being held hostage and are being enslaved by a radical left that couldn’t care less! -DrE]

And now the Trumpet Blows.

Now today I ran across this headline;
US bracing for secessionist sentiments

After one-and-a-half-centuries, Washington has come across a new phenomenon surfacing in its political arena as secessionist advocates in the state of Vermont seek a divorce from the United States of America.

Read it here; http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117609&sectionid=3510203

Is it possible that as the ship goes down that certain states will refuse to go down with it? You bet it is. There may soon be an outcry from the fiscally responsible states (Vermont, Texas, North Dakota) to refuse to bail out the fruits and nuts in California and New York.

Good lord.  The First Republic of Vermont?  Really?  Where has this blogger been?  I’ve posted on it a few times over the past half a dozen years (as well the less advanced “Cascadia” secessionist movement.) 
Heck.  Secessionism Fever appears a re-occuring item.
But isn’t Vermont… pinko liberal?

Never mind that, though.  I’d think the Civil War would be a bit more pronounced than the ancient fringe secessionist movements milling and mulling about.  Igor Panarin needs to stick to apocalyptic forecasts of doomed America — with no dates certain — and enough wriggle room that many a bad sign in America can be shown as “America in Decline” ala Roman Empire.

I can imagine the Republicans pulling themselves together and coming up with an effective game plan, and messaging strategy, for that televised conflab the House Republicans had with Obama on Friday.  The object, I guess, would be to find a way to find a way to trip him up — get a malpropism, misspeak, or that hasty attempt to cover up and say nothing which occasionally happens.  Obama came out ahead in this exercise, dashing away at some breeding problems that had entered his political fortunes.  I suppose had he been closer to the cariacture of the “TelePrompter” president, he would have faltered more.

I can’t quite imagine the Democrats putting forth a united message in that same hypothetical spot.  Then again, the President Bush would just be grating.  And then again, again, a third of the Democratic Party would be taking the opportunity to ask questions asserting a “Centrism”.  This has Political Grandstanding stamped all over it.

Likewise, imagine this conflab ala the British Prime Minister Question session.  In the end, the game is just having the parties lined up, and jeering at each other.  And or. I’ve long thought that this item of Great Britain’s political system should be imported over here, stateside.  But at this moment, after Obama’s performance before the House Republicans, with this thought exiting a theoretical arena and entering slightly into a matter of practical consideration, I am no longer so sure.   It looks like one more irrelevant nature of added political acting in a political culture.