I originally thought that the final two segments of Thursday’s “Morning Sedition” (the now-canceled Air America morning show) program was a joke. A “corporate suit” walks in, and tensions grow between him and Marc Maron (the co-host who is being shoved away along with with the show) as the “Director of Talent Development” (or some such title) placates Marc Maron. Next segment, he stumbles through a routine (“Liberal Marching Orders” perhaps?), and can’t do it, rattled by being walked in like that. He returns, there’s fighting, and what made me think it was a gag: after Marc Maron yelps out something about “What are you going to do? Can me?”, the show goes to the wacky theme for the “Sammy the Stem-Cell” bit.

It seemed kind of similar to a repeated “Best of” moment they aired a few days prior, where the hosts “Called out” for any conservative New York resident who wants to come in and have a fight with one of the show-hosts. And, sure enough, someone does come in, and we have a war of chest-beating bluster. Then, after some things are settled “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome our guest co-host for the hour, from the WWE [name of pro-wrestler].”

Upon hearing those two segments again… and hearing it discussed on “Majority Report” as an actual incident… it suddenly looks as though “Marc Maron’s melt-down” and on-air fight with the “Director of Talent Development” was, indeed, real, and the playing of the wacky “Sammy the Stem Cell” music was an instant-reaction to fill up the tense fight.

Go figure.

This comment on the top of Marc Maron’s webpage looks like something Rick Emerson might’ve put on his website when his show was cancelled last May:

Popcorn is a good analogy for show business. Every time you make popcorn, there are always those fluffy, white, happy popped pieces that are fun to eat and look at and everybody likes them. But there are also always those burnt, hard kernels at the bottom that don’t pop. You know why they don’t pop? They don’t pop because they have integrity.

A quick note on “Morning Sedition”: the show was horrible when it first aired, so I initially paid no mind to it. In Portland, it was moved to 3:00 am to make way for Thom Hartmann — by which time, it had found itself, I guess partly by ridding itself of Sue Elicot and partly through the seasoning process of the radio nonprofessional Marc Maron.

But it looks like there’s two weeks of “Best Of” programs left for the show. I don’t know if I recommend staying up late or waking up early…

52 YEAS, 47 Nays, 1 not voting, 1 nay done for procedual reasons to bring back up. Really, 53 Nays, 46 Nays, and 1 not voing — Bill Frist’s procedural voting doesn’t give him any points here.

Democratic Yay fence-crossers:
BEN NELSON OF NEBRASKA

Republican Nay fence-crossers:

LARRY CRAIG OF IDAHO, CHUCK HAGEL OF NEBRASKA, LISA MURKOWSKI OF ALASKA, JOHN SUNUNU OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Assimilate that information how you must. I ponder the meaning of the two Nebraska Senators jumping across the aisle, past each other, in pursuit of their different political positionings. I am a bit puzzled by Tom Coburn’s absence from the listings, as I had thought that Republican Senator (and all around nutcase) Tom Coburn of Oklahoma would be there with the filibuster, that seeming to be the saving grace over Brad Carson in that Republican Primary that masqueraded as a General Election. I guess Tom Coburn was whipped around or something.

As for the images, I regret to say that there were no funny images of Lisa Murkowski or Ben Nelson. Political enemies of Murkowski and Nelson need to get to work on grabbing unflattering images from anywhere at all. My image of John Sununu is 15 years old, but I toss it in to give a historical connection of sorts — the Bush I insider in the age of Bush II.

Russ Feingold posted an unofficial transcript of his bit in the Senate debate. Or, perhaps, his tenure as Blogger describing his week.

Define “classicist” for me.

Never mind. I like Victor Davis Hanson’s editorials, or maybe I love to hate to love to hate them. They’re nice, warm, and fuzzy. There’s a consistency that’s blindingly Wonder-breadish — just smash me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and remove the crust, please. He basically writes the same editorial over and over again, which makes plenty of sense: he’s paralleling Bush, who gives the same speech over and over again.

Take it away, Victor Davis Hanson, World Class Classicist!!

The first throw-in-the-towel remark, however, did not come from Howard Dean or John Murtha — but from Horace Greeley about the Civil War during the depressing summer of 1864. And the second quote is Douglas MacArthur’s bleak assessment not long after the Chinese Red Army crossed the Yalu River in the autumn of 1950.

We can derive three historical lessons that are relevant to our present finger-pointing over Iraq.

The first historical lesson that is relevant is that we did indeed “throw in the towel” in the Korean War, after we fought our way back to the war’s beginning at the 38th Parallel. Eisenhower made a truce agreement that Truman observed would have gotten a President Truman or President Stevenson (ie: the Democrats then being blasted by Joseph McCarthy and then being accused of “losing China”) blasted for “appeasement” and “being soft on Communism”. The parallel with us in Iraq is simply: sometimes you can get something other than a “defeat” or “victory” in a war — and sometimes that is just a’okay, and to some degree we’re going to have to be “appeasing” the Iraqi Insurgents (as apart from appeasing terrorists) whose nation it is. (Hopefully, getting them to vote and vote and vote again will gallop us “half way toward them”. I note something that our Classicist Historian forgets to mention in his happy news: before the elections, Iraqi leaders came together and agreed that Reaching out to the Sunni Arab community, Iraqi leaders called for Iraq’s opposition has a “legitimate right” of resistance, which is for the bulk of them a political gambit and attempt at getting Votes — meet the Iraqi Wedge Issue: “Fighting Coalition Troops”.)

The second historical lesson is that under a President Victor Davis Hanson, every war should be fought to the end, whatever “end” means, and any war should be fought. We should resume fighting in Vietnam right this minute!

The third historical lesson is that Woodrow Wilson is an a$$hole.

Most today revere Lincoln and Marshall, along with Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who weathered unimaginable slurs. A Gen. McClellan or Sen. Jenner — who opportunistically piled on when news from the front was bad — was mostly forgotten when things inevitably improved.

The same will probably be true of Iraq. The election this week will prove the most successful yet. The Iraqi army gets bigger — and better. The Pentagon now does not fret over the need for more American troops, but agrees that evolving events on the ground will allow measured withdrawal.

I draw your attention to the word “inevitably”. What is inevitable? Why are things inevitable? Are things inevitable only for America? Was winning the Korean War straight into Red China “inevitable”, or was stopping it back at the 38th Parallel and crafting an uneasy truce the “inevitable” conclusion of the Korean War? From the point of view of the actors of the carnage in the Sudan: is winning that one inevitable? Or is history narrowly disclosed to a closed system of America — and there are no parallels to the rise and fall of previous great powers, or the existence of other nations in the world past and present? (And this paragraph, as clumsily written as it is, drives at the central problem of why I find Victor Davis Hanson’s repeating mantra of editorials tedious.)

I mention one more thing about the Iraqi elections. In the 1990s, you would hear Republicans (and I did listen to some Rush Limbaugh at one time) murmur on how James Carville was out there helping the Labor Party in Israel get Barak elected, or Yeltsin re-elected. Keen insight into the nature of American hegenomy. But they’ve lost their savvy with regards to the Iraqi election, and “Allawai Fever” which is being fed into the Iraqis from our government.

Quite by accident, I happened upon the list of Top 40 Songs from the Top 40 List with a Conservative Message, which I alluded to in my John Lennon post from last Friday.

The Beatles’ “Revolution” is #2. I’ll let it pass, and I didn’t let it pass a week ago, as it was a critique of a left-wing Revolutionary Zeal.

The list seems to define any biblical message as “conservative”, hence the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright with Me” and the Byrds’ “Turn”. (However, I take the view that being deeply religious makes the song per se conservative, even if the religion is Hinduism or Buddhism. is his defense of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”, which is a weird tact to take considering what rests behind the current fervor over “Christmas” versus a more non-denominational “Holiday Season”.) Likewise, every patriotic celebration is deemed “conservative”. God and Country… God and Country… God… and… Country…

Bobby Fuller Four, “I Fought the Law”, which is supposed to be, what, a celebration of Government Prosecutors?

A word about Lynrd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”. Consider the defense of the lyrics that aligns it with the “Conservative Movement”:

In Birmingham they love the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you?
Tell the truth

A pean to the segregationist George Wallace, followed by questioning the motives of Nixon’s political enemies. That does not exactly strike me as the high-point of American Conservativism, but… yeah, I guess it’s a celebration of Conservativism. (Or Reactionaryism?)

Madonna’s, “Papa Don’t Preach”… a joyous celebration of single motherhood?

Beyond that… two anti-feminist songs: Tammy Wynette, “Stand By Your Man” and James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, for anybody’s consideration to consider.

Kos? KOS???

How does Kos get credit for this? He blew the race off the first time he mentioned it. For a month the blogosphere ignored the race, including
Kossacks. I started out blogging the race, and then Tim Tagaris blow
the thing open on the net with the blogosphere day. It was a nice
coordination of local and national bloggers, but I wouldn’t give Kos any
credit for it.

Fair enough, and I retract my flippantly made (somewhat mocking) statement. It’s your creation, and it’s http://www.bizzyblog.com’s, or so suggests my quick search through the blogosphere. And, fairly certainly the Paul Hackett — Jean Schmidt race was the only game in only game in town.

This commenter can read this graph better than I can, and knows better than I what might have spiked up Paul Hackett’s “q-rating”. Chief among the blog-burst creators (from my quick reading of a search engine archive) being the dccc’s web post of July 9, and the subsequent “Blogosphere Day” (a first year anniversary reprise of, if I want to stretch some credit of any kind to kos, kos’s “Blogosphere Day” for Ginny Schrader.)… the Debates appear to have caused a small stir of blog activity for Paul Hackett as well.

The chief blog enemies of Paul Hackett appear to have been found at http://made4theinternet.blogspot.com and http://www.porkopolis.blogspot.com .

As for the reason for the kos reference… it’s simply a continued reflex at his 2004 glowing praise of Oklahoma Senate candidate Brad Carson, who is the poster-child of that American Prospect article’s question.

Sayseth Bernie Sanders: The truth is that Bush and Karl Rove do not like Vermont for a lot of reasons. They don’t like the fact that Jim Jeffords gave the Senate over to the Democrats. They don’t like Howard Dean. They don’t like Leahy. They don’t like me.

But let’s face it. This is a Bernie Sanders sales pitch, waving his hand for campaign funds from “the people”, as he attempts to become “The People’s Champion” in the Upper Chamber of America’s legislative branch. Being that he is, however nominally, a socialist, he’s not funding his campaign with corporate finances. Thus, according to Bernie Sanders, it is Vermont versus the World, or Vermont versus the Monolith United States Republican Government.

But since when are Jim Jeffords, Howard Dean, Bernie Sanders, and especially Patrick Leahy, Vermont? Heck, the state has a Republican Governor, you know. The Soul of Vermont politics lies elsewhere.

The group’s seriousness of purpose is evident in its literate monthly, Vermont Commons, which includes contributions from the likes of Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, and Kirkpatrick Sale on such topics as family and organic farming, community-supported agriculture, land trusts, and local currencies—constituting in sum, a humane and practicable alternative to the Empire of Wal-Mart and Warfare. The tincture is green, but conservative, too, and although Naylor refuses to kiss up to his state’s hack politicians—he calls Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy “a world-class prostitute”—the Republican lieutenant governor has praised the SVR for “their energy and their passion.”

I now ask the question… where is this profession of “radical puppeteers”?

The Rev. Ben T. Matchstick, a radical puppeteer, called the assembly to irreverent order with a benediction invoking “the flounder, the sunfish, and the holy mackerel.”

The Comics Journal had a feature on the “Radical Puppeter’s” of the Bread and Puppet Theater pamphlets… a worthy issue, even if the lead editorial is a cop-out. Radical Puppeteers of the World, unite… in… getting Vermont to secede from the Union? As praised by Pat Buchanan’s magazine?
…

McClaughry is a cussed original whose work I have long admired, but unless the defining characteristics of “anti-American leftism” are a loathing of Wal-Mart, the Iraq War, and Big Government and a fondness for organic farming, town meeting, and a Vermont First ethic, the SVR seems to me a wholesomely shaggy band of ur-Americans, not anti-Americans.
…

Maybe I’ll travel to the Republic of Vermont. A nice place to visit, but my soul rests in the nation I live in… The Republic of Cascadia…

(Goddamned it, I hope in the land of Cascadia, I can sign the flag every which way I want — the same as the President!

Did you hear the one about Prescott Bush helping finance the Nazis?

… which was fairly common for American industrialists to do pre-WWII, and there was a decent amount of pro-Nazi and anti-Communist sentiment in the throngs of “isolationist” mindset, so so what?

… Did you hear the one about Prescott Bush helping finance the Nazis after it was illegal to do so?

True? I don’t know. It pops up in the mainstream press from time to time (and yes, even past the liberal “Guardian” newspaper), and is the topic of conspiracy theorists throughout the world ever since the name “Bush” became synanomous with “the Establishment” of our government. (“New World Order” indeedy.)

So, um… apparently because the founder of Air America Radio buys into the concept and because it is shared and brought forward by Lyndon LaRouche, the founder of Air America is a Lyndon LaRouche Sympathizer?

Actually, the reason given here is that Sheldon Drobny cited a Lyndon LaRouche sympathizer for an editorial he once wrote. Which, I guess, would make Sheldon Drobny a Lyndon LaRouche sympathizer sympathizer. May the buyer bewar.

There’s a short book he wrote entitled Road to Air America, and he devotes space to this little controversy, and tosses in a couple of mainstream news articles about the “Prescott Bush” phenomenom. More interestingly than a supposed (and false) admiration for Mr. LaRouche is the historical political figure that Drobny is an admirer of: Henry Wallace (and, yes, Drobny provides a “conspiracy theory” on how the political bosses thumped the Democratic Party masses from nominating Wallace for vice president instead of their pick, Harry Truman, at the 1944 nominating convention). This piece from Henry Wallace is found in the appendix, and I guess you can admire the gusto and political hyperbole of Henry Wallace…

… and at least smile that the founder of the pre-eminent liberal radio network isn’t simply a straight center-liberal Democrat… a good thing for the purpose of providing falling into “our team”-itis.

I think Sam Rosenfeld is asking the wrong question here on the paragraphs he keyed in on from this Time article. Think about this for a minute:

However improbable the odds at this point or modest his short-term goals, aides say, Bush still subscribes to Rove’s long-held dream that his will be the transformational presidency that lays the groundwork for a Republican majority that can endure, as Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition did, for a half-century or more. Once he gets past the midterm elections, Bush plans to introduce a concept that, if anything, is even more ambitious than his failed Social Security plan: a grand overhaul that would include not only that program but Medicare and Medicaid as well. Says strategist McKinnon: “He knows that part of what he brings to the presidency is an ability and commitment to chart a long course under public pressure.” The question that will be answered in the coming year is whether America still believes in George Bush enough to follow.

Granted, Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 campaign was a bit lukewarm in showering his vision, a vision that I guess you would have to say is what created this coalition that endured, as this article puts it, for “half-century or more.” But four years into it, his 1936 campaign was pretty up front on what Franklin Roosevelt was doing and where he was taking the country.

Now take a look at Bush. When is he going to “introduce a concept that, if anything, is even more ambitious than his failed Social Security plan”? Why… “once he gets past the midterm elections”!! In the aftermath of the 2004 elections, Bush’s supporters (at the National Review and in the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, and I guess on right wing radio) proclaimed that Bush’s mandate was greater than — say — Ronald Reagan’s because, while Reagan won in a landslide, Bush won with boldness and clarity of vision. None of which worked out well this year because, quite frankly, nobody could really figure out what bold and clear domestic program that Bush supposedly had in the 2004 elections was, and so on a handful of key policies (though, unfortunately, not on bankruptcy reform), the Democrats laughed it off, Bush got himself entangled in paying back the supposed key constituency of his breath-taking 3% victory in the Terri Schivo affair, the Democratic Party realized that if they can’t defend the legacy of FDR with Social Security they have nothing, and Bush’s vision of inept government finally was exposed with Hurricane Katrina.

Why do you suppose Bush would have to unveil his ambitious strategy for reshaping America after and not during the 2006 midterm elections (elections, in theory, being where you put up your idea for America and the other party puts up their idea for America, and may the most popular idea for America win), and why do I figure that the answer to that question sort of scuttles the image of a “Republican majority that can endure, as Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition did, for a half-century or more”? (By the way… aren’t we in the midst of a Republican majority that takes us back to Nixon, or if not Nixon than Reagan?)

I now present the classic hack sports writer “clever” headline for the weekend, published in newspaper after newspaper, and spouted out by tv and radio sportscaster after sportscaster throughout this great nation of ours: BUSH WINS IN A LANDSLIDE.

Har de Har Har.

They say that Reggie Bush is a once in a generation running back, and that an NFL team with a number one pick that passes on him in favour of one of the stand-out quarterbacks may be making the kind of mistake that Portland Trailblazers made in selecting Sam Bowie in front of Michael Jordan. Far be it for me to make guestimates on such pronouncements, but the last two “once-in-a-generation” running backs, as far as I can tell, would be O.J. Simpson, for a Buffalo Bills team that never wandered into the Superbowl under his tutelige, and Barry Sanders, for a Detroit Lions franchise that has won one playoff game in the last 40 years. (But he did thrill multitudes of football fans on Thanksgiving Day television year after year, and momentarily made the Detroit Lions something other than the Great Joke of the League, so he did do some good.)

The Game of the Year would thus be the final week game between the currently 1-12 Houston Texans and the currently 2-11 San Francisco 49ers. Houston came into the season riding a high of a decent season last year with expectations that they may be a playoff conteder this year, and have, as of late, been finding creative ways to lose and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. San Francisco is a franchise that decided to start sucking back around 1999, but somehow Steve Mariachi produced a winning team or two, so he was let go so that the franchise could commence sucking, Steve Mariachi being hired by the Detroit Lions — a franchise that is incapable of not sucking.

There is no reason for the teams to get a victory for the rest of the season. I guess the Houston Texans have a larger margin of error in this regard — they can win and come into the final game with 2 wins, or maybe even 3, and as long as they lose to the San Francisco 49ers… they’ll be home free. That may be why they team is managing to nearly win, whereas the San Francisco 49ers know they don’t have any room for error and thus… that explains yesterday’s 42-3 defeat at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks.

The NBA, I regret to say, lost this kind of mentality when they changed their draft positions to the lottery system. (A bunch of balls bounce around, bingo-style, in a canister of air; all the non-playoff teams have balls in the machine — the worst team has more balls than the next worst team than the next worst team and so forth… the result being that the Orlando Magic won Penny Hardaway and than Shaquille O’Neal for the honor of being destroyed in the NBA Finals, and the San Antonio Spurs had one off-year and thus won Tim Duncan to get them some championships.) The funniest thing I ever heard with the lottery system was the Los Angeles Clippers winning the lottery, and the sports-man on tv saying, “And the Los Angeles Clippers now celebrate the tenth anniversary of the last time they won the lottery” — which was… um… a joke… because… you stink ten years ago, and you stink now? (Well, not now now, but then now… which gets me to…)
……………….

Last year, I was following two NBA teams’ win-loss record, watching an informatl competition between the down-and-just-destroyed Los Angeles Lakers and the sort-of-possibly-on-the-grow Los Angeles Clippers. For most of the season, the Los Angeles Lakers still held the upper ground in this fight for supremacy of the Los Angeles area. But then, after the all-star break, the Lakers started compiling losses, and falling out of their bottom tier playoff-picture berth. Phil Hendrie wound up on a Los Angeles Sports station, and thus played “Brian Grant” for a “Lakers Talk” segment. (An inspired bit, I must say.) Which gave us the classic discussion “You know, I don’t get much into politics, but I must say: Terri Schiavo is showing more signs of life than the Los Angeles Lakers! Terri Schiavo’s heart is beating more surely than Kobe Bryant’s!”

Final Record:
LA Clippers 37 45 .451
LA Lakers 34 48 .415

This year, it’s shaping up to be not even close.
LA Clippers 14 6 .700
LA Lakers 10 10 .500

The Los Angeles Clippers being an … um… elite team. (?)
………………………

Prediction: the Seattle Seahawks will play in the Superbowl. Where they will be thumped and whacked by the Indianapolis Colts by more than three touchdowns. Good Stuff!

The comedian Eugene McCarthy and the politician Richard Pryor died Saturday. It’s worthwhile remembering their lives and their contributions to our society.

Richard Pryor upended the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. If I had Norman Mailer’s book ‘The Siege of Chicago’ at hand, I’d move into the tense scene at the Democratic Convention of that year.

Eugene McCarthy helped inspire the current generation of stand-up comics, particularly opening up the door to in-your-face African American comedians like Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy. Eugene McCarthy’s social satire in the comedy album “That Nigger’s Crazy” shows the frank, racial social commentary that he always provided.

On the flip side, you have to ponder some things about these two notable individuals. Richard Pryor’s post-1972 stabs at the White House — 1976, 1988, and 1992 — made him into a LaRouchite figure. And what is up with Eugene McCarthy’s appearance in Superman III?