Oregonian headline “Bush pledges to finish Iraq job “…

Underneath, someone posted … “With His Trusty MK-47.”*

This type of thing is going around, I suppose.

*I almost certainly got the weapon wrong, but it doesn’t matter.

I’m told that Rush Limbaugh, once upon a time, entertained more than just standard electoral politics on his show. He did an entire on the latest Peter Gabriel release sometime in the late 80s / early 90s.

Or so I’m told.

Then again, I’m also told that Rush Limbaugh was (if you can believe it) further to the right then he is now. The theory here goes that once he was given a perch into the RNC establishment, he necessarily adapted himself to fit into… the RNC establishment.

Tom Leykis’s show, once upon a time, dealt with various cultural mores, and politics of a type. Various sources tell me that. My father even listened in, at times. Today it’s almost entirely t and a talk. The ratings were Tom Leykis’s guidepost.

Opposing directions.

Which brings us to the current Howard Stern Show.

I don’t listen to Howard Stern. But I have a roommate who has, on occassion, chimed in… and so I’ve overheard his show a small handful of times.

He’s become prone to… ranting and raving against the Bush Administration.

Ever since his troubles with the FCC and his troubles with Clear Channel.

His politics before had leaned itself toward “Moderate Republican.” He approved of Christine Todd Whitman, Rudy Guiliana (after a momentary run for mayor as a Libertarian.) And he was, by all accounts, pro- Iraq War… or at least anti-anti-war.

Now he’s preaching the anti-Bush gospel.

Self-serving as his political transformation is, and my guess is it’s a rather temporal change. He’s throwing out his frustrations at one figurehead, moving beyond Michael Powell.

He’ll be back to chatting about porn star’s boobs soon enough… probably still is.

For an administration who has been creepily adept at image-management, the Bush Administration has really left some off-putting misfires — both planned images that just grew or potentially may grow absurd and images with his guard thrown down …

#1: “Mission Accomplished” may well be the “Read My Lips. No New Taxes” of the Bush II administration.

#2: This is self-parody. Can Bush’s “good old boy” image hold him through in these troubled times, against the “intellectual elitists” charicature of “puppet master” Cheney with “dis-engaged” Bush? (And remember: it’s David Frum who says that Bush couldn’t pass a test on his cabinet.) It’s the puzzling aspect of American politics.

#3: This juxtaposition is almost irresistable for caricature. August 6, 2001: The memo released August 6, 2001: “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States’. August 7, 2001: Bush Starts Month-Long Vacation in Crawford.

Which, mind ye, he’s back in Crawford yet again.

Though, politically the opposition party must tread carefully … frame the issue tightly. If it weren’t for the fact that this was “The Summer of Threats”, I’d be right there with that volcanic focus group.

Which leads us to:

#4: What happened here? I suppose the man was paralyzed, perhaps in the denial stage– understandably so I may add… but it is… the creepy footage.

#5: The New York Convention, politically scheduled location and time, may well backfire. A nation’s mood can sometimes change rather rapidly. The convention time and place was pretty well set after the successful 2002 mid-term elections, where the aura of National Defense propelled the RNC to success. Two years later, the image, predictably enough, may just leave a bad taste in the “swing voter’s” mouth. Mind ye… the operative word here is may.

And on the “may” note: Maybe Kerry is opening up a few bad images hisownself. His “Misery Index” does smack a bit of Jimmy Carter’s “National Malaise” (as pontificated by the hired hack chatterers), with the important difference being: Jimmy Carter was talking about his own administration. — Nonetheless, unless he can navigate “That Vision Thing” for Kerry Administration to pursue as a counter to this Bush Adminstration up-tik on the “Misery Index”, it reinforces the image of “Moody, Pessimist” — and Bush can pump up his “Turning the Corner” rhetoric.

This post is an example of why political strategy analysis must die…

From out of Mad Cow Country comes this view, representing many I suppose:

“I would like if there was a better challenger for Bush,” said Justin Tucker, a 21-year-old college student from Prosser, Wash., who supports the president. “I just don’t believe in ripping the president out of office during a war on terror – especially to replace him with Kerry. Who knows what Kerry’s going to do?”

I don’t know. What would Kerry do?

Bush leads an expedition of men from the tv show Fishing With Rolan Martin to show off his ranch’s fishin’ holes.

I just don’t know if Kerry’s ability to drive a Harley Davidson onto Jay Leno’s set can compete with that.

These are tough questions that need to be answered.

…
Update: Roland Martin says he caught a big fish. And, Bush is cutting his fishing expedition with his dad and Roland Martin short to focus on… you know… Iraq.

I was disappointed after the Cole bombing.

See… my parents were in town. They noticed this spot where one flag was at half-staff and another wasn’t. “Well… looks like war,” either my mother or my father said.

It didn’t really look like war to me. It looked like war post-poned. Gore and Bush didn’t want to touch this with a ten-foot pole, because they both didn’t want to throw it into the dullard conservative battle of attrition that was, even before the post-election Florida mess, Election 2000. Neither wanted to tip off the balance of their careful bean-counts with this wild card. (Remember, this wasn’t too far after Trent Lott said on CNN concerning Kosovo “Give Peace a Chance.”)

The conversation that followed: who would benefit: Bush or Gore… Gore because you don’t switch horses in midstream; Bush because, y’know… he has the “Grown Ups” of his father’s administration coming on in… and people trust Colin Powell.

But this all somehow rang false…

And the election was held. Bush was propped into the White House. The extended honey-moon followed… He racked up a few legislative and executive accomplishments… a huge tax cut… generic drugs to fight AIDS in Africa, believe it or not… “No Child Left Behind” — a program that garnered Democratic support — including Teddy Kennedy’s, support which disappeared when George W Bush didn’t bother to fund the danged thing… And while we’re at it: Pull out of the Kyoto Treaty (which was what initially spurred the US- World rift, restored post 9/11, ripped apart during the build-up to Iraq)… limit stem cell research — major bones thrown to the right-wing base.

And then came the extended month-long vacation. The best example of the effect I got from this long vacation comes from this Lloyd Dangle Troubletown cartoon, published either the first week or second week of September in the nation’s urban “alternative” newspaper/ slash/ sex-worker pamphlets… A take-off of Calvin and Hobbes, it had the flurry of Bush/Calvin’s wistful days (think “Calvinball”) with Hobbes, with the final panel “Okay, George. Summer’s over. Back to seriousness.”

Parody can sometimes belie brutal truths. It’s all coming back to me now.

This was, as it is now known, the “Summer of Threats.” And, believe it or not, time and time again, somehow the fact this this was the “Summer of Threat” managed to work its way into the evening news casts… beyond the news of Andrea Yeats and the news of that California congressman’s (whose name escapes me) missing intern. I remember it. It’s all coming back to me now. There were 24-hour news cycles in which we were all informed that well-healed sources and experts were concerned that America was strikingly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Front page news items. Top of the hour news items.

These 24-hour news cycles were quickly interrupted by other 24-hour news cycles in which we went back to the asinine nature of inane coverage of Andrea Yeats and the original Survivor squad.

And in this atmosphere, we jump over to the debate that was occuring on the topic of “National Security”. The Democratic side, for lack of any better spokesperson, was represented by Delaware Senator Joseph Biden. The Republican and Bush administration side was represented by Condelleza Rice.

The Great Policy Debate.

Condi Rice, who at the time was exerting an increasing amount of influence in the administration, believed that we needed to devote our resources toward creating a Star-Wars missile defense. (Didn’t the Chinese downing of our spy-plane tell us anything?)
Joseph Biden thought our resources were better served preparing ourselves from the risks of low-tech terrorism. (Didn’t the Hart-Redman Report, the first major moment when the “Summer of Threats” broke into the 24-hour news cycles though this one during the Spring, tell us anything?)

And we jump over to the current zeitgist-items for dissection. Bush’s comments in Woodward’s standard soft-ball pitching to the powers that be as only Woodward can work it — Bush at War. Page 39.

Not paying attention to that, indeed.

During the “Summer of Threats”, mind you…

Juxtaposed, as it in the current land of various echo chambers, with Condi Rice’s testimony, and answer to the question “What was the title of the memo of August 6, 2001?” Answer: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike the U.S.”

Maybe even with airplanes… which strikes us back to the bizarre comments Condi made that “we’d have no idea that they might strike with airplanes”. (Not reading enough Tom Clancy, I guess…)

And we’re stuck with the creeping question: Didn’t these two watch the news, filtering in only the important parts?

Well… no. Bush, you see, was clearing brush on his ranch. And… hanging out with Barney. Who was having a blast.

And Rice was selling a missile defense shield to protect ourselves from… China, I guess.

Any other items to spit back from out of the memory hole?

Click around the AM Dial. Actually, I’m looking for Jeff Rense… who you can sort of put in the mold of Art Bell. Hit and miss. Frequently amusing, occasionally actually relevant. Had on a good repeat from post 9/11 relating to the start of modern public relations from the WWI era…

But that’s beside the point.

The night before, I couldn’t find him. Something’s wrong with the radio station, which is at times simply pre-empting whatever in favour of whatever else. So, we have this common right-ward dullard going off on a rant about…

“When they bring in the Hitler comparisons, they’re not bringing Bush down to Hitler’s level… they’re bringing Hitler up to the level of George W. Bush.”

Hm. 2 moveon.com entrees deep in the bowels of a reader-submitting contest, an Alexander Cockburn editorial, and a Ted Rall editorial all make up for the use of the word “feminazi” and, for that matter, comparison of Bill Clinton’s modest upper-class tax increase to “Stalinism”.

Ted Kennedy needs to just SHUT UP.

When they try to divide us with their social agenda, blurring the lines of successes… diverting us from what needs to be done in taking down the terrorists… It’s like this: remember when you were in high school and you fought your brother? Then someone comes hitting against your family. At that time, you need to come together, beat up on this other guy, and then beat up on your brother.

Flick around a bit more…

Ponder the personality of Ed Schultz… Randi Rhodes says he’s actually a Republican, who bounced over to Liberal talk radio because he saw an vacuum and an opening…

If it weren’t for the fact that the thought actually came to me independant of her comments (he just sounds so creepily like a Bizarro version of Rush, which brings to mind the idea of contrived thought, and the show is just so deriviate…), I’d assume she’s just slamming the competition.

They just changed the color of the “Terror Alert” in Iraq. It was at red. It has now been moved to “White”.

Fallujah on anyone’s mind?

Well. Sigh.

I’m thinking that I know the name of a man with a proven track record of stopping Iraqi insurgencies. Maybe we can put him in charge of this…

You know the name. I hear from CIA sources* that this guy is even “having fun” right now.

Hey! Couldn’t be any worse than the suggestions of Bill O’Reilly… though maybe he has a suggestion on how to logistically pull off individual graves instead of the mass variety.

……………………………
*Information? Disinformation? Dunno.

Apologies to Randi Rhodes, wherein I grabbed the “terror alert moved to White” from.

Addictive is blogging. But, frequently, there seems no point in adding items that virtually every other blog off on a similar wavelength has added.

What more can be added to the story of George Bush I defending his son’s War in Iraq? (Note what I did just now: To TPM’s “Defies parody”, I just linked… the parody.)

What more do you need to know about Dave–Gate? (It’s worth noting that that last Krugman editorial seems to be linked to virtually every liberal blog in this country.)

I suppose this is the reason I have the “Erstwhere” over on the sidebar… but…

The Echo Chamber Effect works its magic…

Okay. I’ll do a blog entry on Lyndon LaRouche’s campaign. Just to be original and varied.

See… I have this idea that LaRouche is incapable of originality, and he pieces together his conspiracy theories from… LATER.

#1: Al Franken versus Bill O’Reilly, the strange feud in which you must say Franken is winning.

Paraprhaseing Al Franken on Conan O’Brien, doing the “In the Year 2000” bit:

In the Year 2000… “A mad scientist will switch the brains of Al Franken and Bill O’Reilly. Bill O’Reilly will start supporting liberal causes. Al Franken will start masturbating to John Wayne movies.”

#2: Bill O’Reilly versus G Gordon Liddy.

G Gordon Liddy appears on Crossfire., along with Al Franken:

BEGALA: Mr. Liddy, as an expert in the field, why is it that Bill O’Reilly, a guy who sued Al Franken, and got laughed out of court, literally, why he’s so successful on cable television, he hasn’t done very well on radio. Why?

LIDDY: No, he hasn’t. Matt Drudge exposed all his radio ratings, which are in the toilet. I don’t know why he doesn’t do radio well, but he really doesn’t do radio well at all. Maybe because his most nuanced explanation of something is “Shut up!”

Bill O’Reilly then said he’d bring Liddy on his show if he apologized. It’s not exactly in G Gordon Liddy’s nature to do so, and he had no reason to anyhow, so he declined. And Bill O’Reilly responded, to paraphrase:

I don’t care about him. He’s a bug. With all due respect to bugs.

#3: Al Franken, Blanquita Cullum, Cal Thomas (I think) together on with Ted Kopell’s Nightline April 1, 2004, covering the launch of “Air America Radio”…

Cal Thomas (I think), paraphrased: “The danger is that we’ll end up with a bifurcated society.”

(Yes. Talk Radio would be much better if everyone has to get together and listen to a motley crue of Rush-clones…)

The Portland station for “Air America” was once upon a time a standard flare of right-wing blowhards, with the excellent Lionel Show somewhere in the night.

A Clear Channel Station, with the canned quality of a Clear Channel Station.

It was then turned into a charmless station of 50s music, radio beamed from out of Houston. The Clear Channel style, if you will.

Now we have “Air America”…

Two days in, with the aid of night-time reairings, click on and away, and I’ve some impressions.

Al Franken does not have the voice for radio… Show was boring. Check back in a few weeks. Bob Eliott is doing comedy bits for him, apparently, which is a plus.

The goading of Michael Moore to apologize to Al Gore on the air for supporting Nader was bizarre, and awkward.

The local station has shoehorned a show out of the “Air America” purview into its lineup. He displays some of Rush Limbaugh’s tics, and at times I swear I’m hearing the bizzarro Rush Limbaugh (replace the word “Clinton” with “Bush”, and you get the idea.)

In the likely event that this radio network fades away into the night, Randi Rhodes will be the one that survives its death. But, then again, she is the one who has a decade or so experience doing this.

BUT… her interview with Ralph Nader? Sour. Not that Ralph Nader porported himself terribly well, but Rhodes managed to tap into the spirit of Bill O’Reilly… “Confrontainment”… In this case, we had two individuals going off on tangeants of agendas.

(Look up the Carter quote on Nader, though. It bears looking at… A puzzling strategy to fend off the Nader threat appears to be materializing.)

Janeane Garofalo? Didn’t get to hear her.

There’s something depressing about the whole enterprise. It seems kind of contrived and, hierarchically, top-down. Note that the New York station replaced the city’s only afro-centric talk radio station… community radio gets shelved for…

Note also that the voice-over man for the station-spots of the Portland station is the exact same as the voice-over man for the old station, (except no longer is it “We Support the Troops. Talk about the War with Michael Reagan, Michael Gallagher, Glen Beck”… Now it’s “Cutting Through the Right-wing Rhetoric and party-line spin with Common Sense. Portland’s Only* Progressive Talk Radio Station.”)

A manufactured right / left dichotemy that America is expected to kind of fall into… talk past the issues of the day and miss the mark somehow.

Still, it can be entertaining. And since my old radio-standby (home of Clyde Lewis and Phil Hendrie) seems to be in the process of destroying itself.

…………………………………………
*Ever hear of “KBOO”?