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We’re been enjoying a brief and tardy summer-vacation-in-concentrate down at the beach this week; tardy because Mary missed her ordinary break due to switching tracks at the school where she teaches, and down at the shore because I have a perverse affinity for palm trees in the fog.

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But even though I’m not there to collect the LA Times from our doorstep each morning and peel open the Op-Ed section with equal parts dread and masochistic anticipation, Jonah Goldberg still somehow manages to exist, thus spoiling my theory that his periodic manifestations in the newspaper were due less to poor editorial judgment, and more to my habit of gorging on midnight snacks of leftover chicken vindaloo.  Alas, there he is, still splashing spoonfuls of runny talking points onto my screen, garnished with a dainty floret of ketchup like he was a Reagan-era Lunch Lady.

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After running a brilliant and historic primary battle to defeat Hillary Clinton, the Obama campaign is now in disarray. Why?

Because I hate him!  M…O…U…S…E…!

Perhaps it’s because Barack Obama has never run a competitive race against a Republican. After all, Obama won his U.S. Senate seat in Illinois by running against Alan Keyes, a fire-and-brimstone, right-wing black carpetbagger from Maryland (or perhaps Mars) who had no real ties to Illinois.

Wow, that’s pretty harsh, Jonah.  Can’t you say find anything nice to say about Keyes?

But all I will say is that I’ve met Alan Keyes, and whatever his other flaws, he’s so clean you could eat off him.

That makes it all better, thanks.  So, anyway, you’re peeved about some ad the Obama campaign is running?

It begins with the date “1982,” a picture of a disco ball and footage of McCain in clunky glasses from his first year in Washington. “Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn’t,” explains the announcer. “He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer, can’t send an e-mail, still doesn’t understand the economy and favors $200 billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class.” All the while it shows ancient computers and a cordless phone that looks like a World War II-era walkie-talkie.

First, the ad is dishonest.

Except for its main point about McCain’s economic policies.  But that’s not going to stop Jonah, who has a demonstrated ability to take the defining political questions of the day and reduce them to a debate about Stuffing or Potatoes, while never quite committing himself to one starch or the other.  If dragged to the Shrine Auditorium and asked to denounce a neo-Nazi rally going on inside, Jonah would stare at his shoes for a moment or two before deciding that the real outrage was the buildings Moorish details, which might send the wrong message to passersby at a time when we’re at war with liberal Islamofascists.

McCain has been one of the Senate’s leading authorities on telecom and the Internet.

In that he’s heard it exists, it’s made of tubes, and Al Gore invented it, which is why McCain labored all night at his soldering bench to produce his prototype “Blackberry,” because that’s the way you get elected President in this country.

Being chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Weisberg explained, “forced him to learn about the Internet early on, and young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos fascinate him.”

Although, when they appeared before his committee, McCain managed to resist staring at their tits and asses while compulsively twisting his wedding ring all through the hearing.

But as we all know, McCain’s every flaw can be excused by his brutal confinement in a North Vietnamese prison, leading one to conclude that prior to his capture, he must have been the most perfect human being since Jesus to walk this earth and get divorced and graduate at the bottom of his class.

One reason McCain is not versed in the mechanical details of sending e-mail and typing on a keyboard is that the North Vietnamese broke his fingers and shattered both of his arms. As Forbes, Slate and the Boston Globe reported in 2000, McCain’s injuries make using a keyboard painfully laborious. He mostly relies on his wife and staff to show him e-mails and websites, though he says he’s getting up to speed.

Because Cindy was beginning to balk at having to stop whatever she was doing to log John onto ArcticAsses.com, SexxySnowmachiners, and I Spy Cariboutoe

Besides, by this logic, Obama is even less qualified to be commander in chief because, unlike McCain, Obama has never fired a gun, flown a plane or led men during wartime.

Or crashed a single plane, let alone five, touched off a devastating blaze on the deck of an aircraft carrier, or got captured.  All essential qualifications for the modern commander-in-chief, if America hopes to keep its recent streak of botched, lingering, inconclusive wars going.

And if the Obama campaign did not intend to mock a disabled veteran, what does it say about his supposedly “cybersavvy” campaign that they don’t know how to conduct a five-minute Google search to find out these things?

“I’m not sure, but as soon as my intern gets back from lunch he’s gonna look it up.”

Obama doesn’t know how to get outside his echo chamber. He talks about being bipartisan to hard-core liberals who like the words

Because nobody is more pleased when you sell out a political party than its hardcore partisans.

He talks about new ideas, but he merely repackages old ones.

“And wait — listen — I’ve got a totally new, completely unexpected way to attack Obama for it.  We start out with a medium shot of McCain, looking over the camera and kind of squinting.  Then he says — you’re gonna love this — he says, in sort of this confused, quavery old man voice, he says, ‘Where’s the BEEF?’  Huh?  Huh?  Oh yeah!  Just call me the new Turdblossom, baby!”

19 Responses to “Stupidity Won’t Take A Holiday”

McCain’s arm & shoulder injuries were incurred when he forgot to release the canopy of his bomber before ejecting. “D’OH!” Dunno about the fingers.

young Web entrepreneurs such as Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos fascinate him

Gee. Wonder if McCain economic advisor and prominent female Meg Whitman could have come up with another example for him?

The hand thing? Not so much

Such a pretty photo of palm trees! You really should have put them BELOW Goldberg’s pea-brained drivel, so the image could wash away the pain.

I’ve met Alan Keyes, and whatever his other flaws, he’s so clean you could eat off him.

Given his current avoirdupoidal dilemma, Fudgie might want to get his mind off food…

Being chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Weisberg explained, “forced him to learn about the Internet early on

No doubt he was one of the first to sign up for the Juggs.com website.

Besides, by this logic, Obama is even less qualified to be commander in chief because, unlike McCain, Obama has never fired a gun, flown a plane or led men during wartime.

On the other hand, he’s the *perfect* candidate to get us out of a war started by a guy who, um, never fired a gun, flown a plane in anger or led men during wartime…

Obama doesn’t know how to get outside his echo chamber.

Fudgie? You need to speak up. Your echo is distracting.

Yes, Alan Keyes, who threw his gay daughter out, is a righteous man. Jonah, this is why your judgment is extremely suspect currency. Or as the kids say, Epic Fail.

Keep digging, though, maybe the hole’ll cave in and the LA Times can hire someone who knows how to do more than repeat McCain press releases.

Jonah’s existence as a paid pundit is an insult to every blogger on the internets who can put together a snappy rebuttal to an obvious lie, and does so for free during time they could otherwise be spending in pursuit of material gain.

Would Jonah say this shit if he wasn’t getting paid? Or would he spend his time playing Penguin Bowling? I think the answer’s pretty clear.

Have a good vacation, guys, and I agree with Bill about the picture and placement.

Back to McCain. Look, thanks to technology that does all the work, quadriplegics can use the Internet. I suspect the technology doesn’t come cheaply, but, well, I think McCain can afford it. If he wanted to. Or if that were the real reason. The real reason is he doesn’t want to. Keyboards are for typists.

Amen, Slywy. There was a great documentary on POV/PBS the other night, “Freedom Machines,” about the uphill battle that special-needs kids and their parents are still waging, in this day and age, to get the accommodations that the Americans With Disabilities Act promised. Not only have the Bushistas gutted the public schools, they’ve desecrated every attempt to help disabled kids stay apace with their peers.

And you’re damned right McSenile could afford whatever voice-recognition and other accommodation software/hardware he’d need, if he truly had any interest in the outside world. Y’know, besides those countries that we need to invade ’cause they’re holding “our” oil hostage. Just another symptom of a man whose time has long passed, and who has absolutely no plans for an actual future.

Maybe he’s hoping that Caribou Barbie will sit on his lap and read the innernets tubes to him, once they’re crowned.

McCain bragging that his wife types for him reminds me of every assbag contractor I have to compete with that either 1) has his wife at home doing the books, answering the phone, handling the accounts and otherwise running the office end of the business all for luv or 2) drives around in a new truck all day that he pays for with his wife’s regular job slaving as an RN or a school teacher.

Patriarchal assbaggery is the core of McCain’s lack of interest in typing on a keyboard of any kind. He’s got a wife to do that for him. By making that admission he just re-aligned the blue-color “entreprenuer” assbag fringe to his side.

Of course Palin’s comment that her job as VP is to “support John in his efforts” only bespeaks the same. The assbag and his ever subservient, hottie bitch side kick.

Oh, about his injuries and Jonah.

What really gets me is that idiots like Goldberg prattle on and on about McCain’s war injuries, they are really awesome to someone whose worst injury in memory is when he stubbed his toe on mama’s divan whilst skulking to the kitchen at one in the morning.

Surely not, kate. I’m certain Goldberg was just as respectful of John Kerry’s war injuries. I mean, I can’t remember any of that, but I’m positive he was. Otherwise, he’d just be a hypocritical prick.

what does it say about his supposedly “cybersavvy” campaign that they don’t know how to conduct a five-minute Google search to find out these things?

Um, didn’t Jonah test out this war-wounds hypothesis with one of his typical “blegs”… in lieu of “conducting a five-minute Google search” his own damn self? And then he was, what’s the word, proved wrong? I suppose he’s saying that he knew _how_ to conduct a five-minute Google search, he just made a conscious choice not to, like the guys outside the Gas ‘n’ Sip giving Lloyd Dobler advice about women.

Jesus. That ad’s insulting, the more so coming from a guy who’s responded to every hyped-up ersatzism thrown at him that it’s “precisely the tone we need to change about our politics”. Th’ fuck does operating email software have to do with being President? And this from a party, and a people, who had an election stolen from it because “Al Gore invented the Internet.” Comedy fodder? Sure. But when a campaign suggests we support it because the other guy “thinks the Jonas Brothers is that kosher meat-packing firm that got busted” it’s perpetuating–officially–precisely what it whined about in that New Yorker cover. And whomever it is in the Obama campaign who thinks hanging Disco balls–which, by 1982, were found only in Midwestern Holiday Inn lounges and on the Soul Trainset–on every voter over fifty is a winning campaign strategy should have been taken out and shot last year, perhaps on his sixteenth birthday.

That said, small wonder that it’s not within Goldberg to simply denounce shit-flinging, which would be like Teresa Heinz Kerry denouncing condiment use. Although having the forty-year-old poster boy for Pathetically Parading Your Pop-Culture Geekdom As A Badge Of Honor denounce 18-29 year-olds as the people who think email “is, like, totally crucial” is, like, totally the reason to read him.

One reason McCain is not versed in the mechanical details of sending e-mail and typing on a keyboard is that the North Vietnamese broke his fingers and shattered both of his arms.

good thing the N Vietnamese never got ahold of Stephen Hawking

What really gets me is that idiots like Goldberg prattle on and on about McCain’s war injuries, they are really awesome to someone whose worst injury in memory is when he stubbed his toe on mama’s divan whilst skulking to the kitchen at one in the morning.

…but laughed their asses off when Republicans wore bandages with l’il purple hearts painted on them in 2004…

Um. It’s not “Cariboutoe.” We in Alaska call it Moose Knuckle. Just thought you should know. Everything else is spot on.

Um. It’s not “Cariboutoe.” We in Alaska call it Moose Knuckle.

OK, I just vomited. A little.

he’s so clean you could eat off him.

Do you suppose that’s Jonah’s way of explaining to his wife why she saw him with his mouth all over Alan Keyes?

Thanks for THAT lovely image, Flip!

…perfect fucking diet plan, ’cause now I never want anything NEAR my mouth again…

(shut the fuck up, Preznit, I can hear the jokes forming in your head…)

That whole “clean” thing reminds me so much of Joe Biden’s idiotic descriptions of Obama (y’know, before that all miraculously disappeared), it reminds me of every condescending inbred bigot I’ve ever met. Yeah, you can TOUCH black people, and some of ‘em are so clean that you won’t even get COOTIES from it! Fucking MOW-RAHNS.

I’ll be so glad when all of the pre-integration morons are dead, ’cause I’m so sick of still hearing their idiocy. You’d think that Jesse Helms’ death might’ve made a dent, but apparently not. I *did* have some rather momentary fun with Wikipedia about it, though… heh. Long live Bill Hicks.

BTW, Katie, I wish that we could publish pictures in these comments, ’cause I’ve got one that explains the move “up” from “camel toe” to “moose knuckle.” My so-called eldest “sister” is the POSTER CHILD for “moose knuckle.” 4’10″h X 4′w, if that gives you a hint, and THINKS that she’s a SIZE TWELVE.

Yeah, you can TOUCH black people, and some of ‘em are so clean that you won’t even get COOTIES from it!

But does the color rub off?

Hm, y’know, there’s a skit in there about rednecks, skin cancer and integration…I just can’t work it out in my head right now. You could call it “Tan In A Can” or something.

Lemme know how it goes with that, kid…

Something to say?