2007 RESOLUTIONS
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Usually you make it to January 1, take a deep breath, look back on the old year and realize there was a fairly equal balance of what you call your good and your bad. The last couple of years (six, to be exact) have tilted a bit towards the latter. But 2006? Holy moley catfish. Subtract the single sublime 24-hour period of time that was November 7th from the other 8,736 hours we slogged through, and you got yourself a awfully grisly swamp of an annum. 2006 was to years what O.J. Simpson is to manners and propriety seminars. Like Paris Hilton and advanced trigonometry texts. Michael Richards and Martin Luther King Dinner keynote speeches. I could go on.
It was the year the president put his hands over his ears and made “la la la” noises whenever confronted with any sort of discouraging word concerning Iraq, whether it came from the citizens of Iraq, the citizens of America, his own intelligence estimates, bi-partisan study groups, his wife Laura or Barney, his dog. The year that Americans found out they were being spied on by their own government and their collective response was a yawn wide enough to erect a gift shop and start offering donkey tours of the bottom. The year that Dick Cheney shot a guy in the face and the victim apologized.
But this year. 2007. Aha! This one’s going to be different. Why? Because we said so. Yeah. Unh hunh. Everybody uses the posting of a new calendar to make plans to change their nefarious ways. You know. Diet. Quit smoking. More exercise. Stop invading countries. Less killing of innocent people. Boring do- gooder stuff, mostly. Meant for the furthering of the self. What they never think of is you and me: the rest of us. And because they don’t, here’s a list of which resolutions should be made by people for the eighth year of the first decade of the 21st century, but probably won’t:
•George Bush’s staff pledges to make sure that all reports sent to him come with broadly drawn cartoons and a new pack of crayons.
•Democrats pledge to work out their differences with the hard line partisan hacks who refuse to compromise on their side of the aisle before yelling at Republicans.
•Tony Snow takes an oath to never open another White House press conference with, “Who wants a piece of me?”
•Snoop Dog determines this is the year he gets his face off the default position of police department mug shot computer programs.
•Dennis Kucinich vows that in this year’s Iowa Straw Poll, he will not lose to the straw.
•Kate Moss resolves to eat a hamburger every time she even thinks of snorting a line of coke.
•Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama vows he will now be known as Barry.
•Bill O’Reilly vows to defy that Al Qaeda death list, whether it exists or not.
•Britney Spears and underwear: a match.
•The airline industry is adamant about making every effort to rid the skies of the most dangerous security element known to man: the half-empty bottle of skin lotion.
•Congress resolves to do absolutely nothing. Just like last year. (oh, if only)
•Trent Lott commits himself, sometime during the year, against his better wishes, to stumble onto the boarding platform of the Clue Train.
•Vladimir Putin makes an internal oath to do everything in his power from ever having to assassinate another journalist. Oh wait, sorry, that’s get caught assassinating another journalist. Or ex-KGB agent. Or Moscow businessman. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.
•The Iraq Study Group vows to try and capture the president’s attention by re- releasing its report under the name “Iraq Recess Group.”
•Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pledges to outline a plan to fix the Social Security problem once and for all that does not involve raising the retirement age to 83.
•The long-distance giants affirm their commitment to continue merging and merging and merging until they eventually coalesce into one single entity which they will rename Ma Bell.
Comic, actor, writer, former radio talk show host and pedicab chauffeur Will Durst wonders if Bill O’Reilly goes into death list chat rooms?
Copyright ©2007 Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc.,syndicate. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. See www.willdurst.com for additional information on Will’s performance schedule and listen to his twice-weekly commentaries @audible.com/willdurst. Email Will at durst@willdurst.com.
Belated 2006 Xma$ Gift Wi$h Li$t
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Posted Jan.2, 2006 -------- Bah, humbug everybody. Consider that uttered in the spirit of those of us familiar with the soft dark underbelly of the happiest time of the year. The ones regularly washed over by the holiday faucet of red and green bile, dreading the solstice celebration as it drips down the drain of melancholy revealing the regurgitated fruit of our greed and gluttony.
But then again, what the hell. Pass me a cookie and another glass of nog and let’s just enjoy the whole thing, shall we? And go easy on the nutmeg and heavy on the whiskey, mister. Because it’s time to just sit back and relax. Xmas is still with us, as we are repeatedly reminded by the televised images of gift returns partially obscured by the coffee-table-high wrapping paper detritus.
So to honor all you brave and steadfast consumers who set new records this year in your patriotic quest to sink heavily into debt to honor the birth of that Jewish hippie kid, let me offer up to the least-deserving of us my annual, scathingly incisive yet perennially trenchant, Will Durst’s Xma$ Gift Wi$h Li$t.
For the Iraqi people: an end to their civil war before the Bush Administration starts calling it that.
For Rush Limbaugh: mint flavored shoe laces for the next time he puts his foot in mouth.
For Mary Cheney’s child: kindly faced, wise and sage other grandparents to neutralize Dick & Lynne.
For British Prime Minister Tony Blair: a gift certificate good for one operation to disconnect him from his co-joined twin George Bush.
For Donald Trump & Rosie O’Donnell: muzzles.
For George Bush: who said he was going to stay the course in Iraq even if only Barney and Laura were supporting him; some dog treats for Barney.
For prospective Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: thicker skirts, so voters aren’t distracted by the sight of her testicles when she speaks on a stage with back lighting.
For Princess Diana: on the tenth anniversary of her death, a moment’s peace for crum’s sake.
For OJ Simpson: a one-way ticket to a deserted island populated predominantly by poisonous pampas grass.
For International Tyrannical Despot Saddam Hussein: a loophole. A big honking loophole.
For Michael Richards: now that his career in Hollywood is over; a gubernatorial bid from the great state of Idaho.
For Mel Gibson: many more in a continuing series of Michael Richards-like incidents.
For Britney Spears: a reciprocal arrangement with Victoria’s Secret.
For Harry Whittington: trigger locks for all his friends.
For the once and future Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry: a flip flop from the overwhelming majority of Republicans who want him to run for the presidency, to an overwhelming majority of Democrats. And a first edition, signed copy of Milton Berle’s Joke File.
For Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman: some of Hillary Clinton’s testosterone.
For Taco Bell: a new advertising campaign that drops the focus on “Run for the Border.”
For Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus: a good agent to say “no” to whatever scheme the Seinfeld team comes up with to promote the next release of DVDs after Michael Richards’ exploits resulted in higher-than-expected sales.
For Democratic New Orleans Congressional Representative William Jefferson: a home safe disguised as one of those mini refrigerators.
Comic, actor, writer, former radio talk show host and porno bookstore clerk, Will Durst, wonders why can’t everyday be Xmas?
Copyright ©2006 Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc.,syndicate. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. See www.willdurst.com for additional information on Will’s performance schedule and listen to his twice weekly commentaries @audible.com/willdurst. Email Will at durst@willdurst.com.
Crocodile Tears
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Posted Dec. 23, 2006 -------- The latest form of political theater descending on DC is the crying of crocodile tears. And this season’s nominations for biggest mock drops are destined to be swept by Beltway players in their demonstration of their fake concern for South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson. Phony sanctimony has long been a staple of the American way of life. Each of us had an aunt whose major talent was feigning fawning sympathy. Usually she had a mole.
Mine was Aunt Hoogolah, who loved to amplify the distress of other family members, hoping to drop her daughter’s ranking on the screw-up chart indelibly chalked on relatives’ minds. Sorry for the convoluted syntax there, but trying to adhere to the embargo on use of the term “black sheep” until the Michael Richards on-stage flip-out has been superseded by another celebrity meltdown. Once the Mel Gibson torch has been passed.
Right now our newspapers and televisions are witnessing such a flurry of fake solicitude they should be handing out snow blowers. Mostly I’m talking about the excruciating sympathy leaking out of the mouths of political pundits everywhere, expressing commiseration for Tim Johnson’s medical situation in their most grave and sincere voice. For ten seconds. Then high pitched squeals as they excitedly speculate for the rest of the show on possible ramifications resulting from his imminent demise.
“Our prayers go out to him and his family. (Short pause—turn to center camera) But if, God forbid, he does die, we trust Governor Mike Rounds will do the right thing. And appoint a Republican to fill his seat bringing the Senate back to dead even. No pun intended. Then when Vice President Dick Cheney breaks the 50-50 tie, the America-loving GOP will retain control of the senior branch of Congress and the sun will shine and birds will fly, but not a single George Bush - directed subpoena will.”
Of course, short of dying—which Senator Johnson undoubtedly prefers avoiding—it’s unlikely he will abdicate his Senate seat. Historically, physical or mental incapacitation has never been a big handicap to the normal operating procedures of the Most Deliberative Body in the World. Let’s not forget Senator Strom Thurmond, whose major accomplishment the last four years of his life was to keep the drool from pooling in his lap. C’mon, are you really serving the government when Willard Scott is wishing you happy birthday?
As to suspicions of some sort of hanky panky going on with the sudden onset of Senator Johnson’s malady, I’m of the opinion that Republicans will do anything to hang onto power. Whatever it takes. And if similarities to the Vladimir Putin/Alexander Litvinenko scene do show up, you know—with the whole radioactive sushi deal, I semi-seriously propose we zero in on a Republican Senator in a Democratic state and attempt to retrieve the status quo.
A twist on the old Sean Connery “Untouchable” philosophy. “If they pull polonium-210 on you, you pull americium-241 on them. If they put one of yours under the knife of a neurosurgeon, you put one of theirs under the wheels of a Peterbilt; that’s the Democratic Way and that’s how you get Trent Lott.” This also applies to Independent Senators. From Connecticut. Who suddenly decide to become Republican. For any reason. At all. Mister Joementum.
Comic, actor, writer, former radio talk show host and sod farmer Will Durst wonders who would eat South Dakota sushi anyway?
Reading Isn’t Fundamental
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Right about now is when it could come in real handy to have a president who reads. A book learning wonk. A guy not allergic to the printed word. George W. Bush even admitted it himself. I think his exact quote was: “I don’t read.” And you know what, I believe him.
Then this summer, something happened. I think it was part of that midterm campaign thing, when the president claimed his beach reading list included Camus’ “The Stranger” and what he referred to as “three Shakespeares.” Three Shakespeares? Sounds like a customer at Baskin-Robbins ordering up a triple scoop of smart. And very suspicious coming from a man famous for struggling through the same page of “My Pet Goat” for 10 minutes.
The whole reading deal is important here because he should have been tempted to give the Iraq Study Group Report a brief scan before repeating, “The Study Group agrees with me.” Unh, no. They don’t. He said this during a joint press conference with Tony Blair that could have been a Tivo of any of his previous eighty gazillion press conferences with Tony Blair. Tony looks and sounds like a statesman, and George looks like an eighth grader trying to fake his way through a book report on a classic he didn’t bother to skim. Does the term “CliffsNotes” have any meaning here?
At the risk of switching milieus, we’re stuck in “Groundhog Day.” Doesn’t matter what happens, we wake up the next morning and instead of hearing Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You, Babe” we get the president playing the same lame game he has for three years: “It’s a tough time. Going to take some hard work. We’re working hard.” His supporters say he’s resolute. You know what, resolute isn’t always a good thing. Butt cancer is resolute.
We won’t even get into the ironic nature of his “hard work” mantra. How odd to be coming from a guy who, pre-president, was the poster child for social promotion. But an exhortation to hard work isn’t the only blunted arrow in his nebulous quiver. In response to what measures he might take based on the report, he gravely intoned, “We will take every proposal seriously and will act in a timely fashion,” which is Presidential Dismissal Speak for “yeah, whatever.”
The Baker-Hamilton Group‘s report was not the chronicle of clarity itself. It came to the considered opinion that… Iraq is messed up and mostly, it’s our fault. For this we spent a million dollars? Too bad they didn’t have time to get into other blistering exposes like: the Pacific Ocean is moist. Wood is not your foremost option for conducting electricity. Wine and peanut butter -- not a match. The board goes back.
The president refused to comment on specifics in the report by dipping into his bottomless bag of vague generalities. “My message is this: I want to work with the Congress, I want to work with people in both parties.” Yeah, sure he does, the same way a five-year-old with a magnifying glass wants to work with ants.
The bipartisan Study Group provided 79 recommendations for alleviating the chaos in Iraq.
Unfortunately none of them involved the president and his entire Cabinet resigning—proving, perhaps, this study group should’ve studied more.
Comic, actor, writer, former radio talk-show host and pedicab driver, Will Durst, thinks having George Bush married to a librarian is like having Britney Spears married to a priest.
And They’re Not Off!
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Posted Dec. 13, 2006 -------- I startled some guy in the next lane at a red light when I shouted at my radio today. A semi-famous network newscaster had come on opining how Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack could easily take the 2008 Iowa caucuses as a favorite son, resulting in a subsequent focus on South Carolina, which is John Edwards territory and this might all work out to upset the Hillary Clinton Applecart Express. AAIIIIEEEE! The guy next to me barely missed a covey of walkers as he peeled out.
I mean, okay, I know, political projection is as predictable as a spilt glass of milk before nap time at a daycare center for hyperactive four year olds. But for crum’s sake, a little common human decency, por favor. We’ve barely finished showering off the crap flung in the midterms and need a moment or so to send our clothes and our souls out to the dry cleaners. Or burn and bury them, then buy new ones.
You’d think these pundits could use a bit of time off themselves. Enough slack to recycle a few lame sports analogies and plant a couple of specious rumors. At least until the New Direction Congress is inaugurated. The 110th doesn’t even start work for more than a month. Shouldn’t they be able to break the seal on their stack of monogrammed Post-It Notes before we start talking about an event occurring at the very end of their term? I’ve seen jailhouse marriages with longer honeymoons. Just ask Duke Cunningham. Or Bob Ney. Or Mark Foley. No, second thought, best not ask Mark Foley.
Is it too much to ask to wait until a mere 22 MONTHS BEFORE the election to start handicapping our next national foray into the depths of depravity and degradation and accusations that make up a Presidential Sweepstakes? Apparently not. I bet even the Cartoon Network has a show speculating on the ‘08 frontrunners in the race to replace George Bush. Even though most of the supposed competitors haven’t even taken off their sweats yet.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The extraordinarily ambitious have been running since November 3rd of 2004 (does the term Junior Senator from New York have any meaning here?). Who cares? Let them. Let them rot in the frozen fields of Iowa and New Hampshire in the middle of this winter. But let them do it alone. Because except the poor beleaguered citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire, it doesn’t matter. Speaking for the rest of us, I have one word for all you long term prognosticators: shut up!
I DON’T CARE. If Bill Frist or Russ Feingold have dropped out. If Clinton or McCain or Edwards or Romney or Giuliani has or hasn’t formed an exploratory committee. If Barack Obama pitches a tent on the South Lawn. Not only don’t I know who Duncan Hunter is, I don’t want to know. People, we’re talking two whole years down the road. A lot of crap could hit the fan in two years. And you know these guys. They have a history of not just finding and flinging crap, but splashing and soaking in it. Give them a wide berth. That’s all I’m saying.
Comic, actor, writer, former radio talk-show host and cave-tour guide, Will Durst, thinks anyone dropping out this early was running the same way he’s running for Pope.
Comments to Durst@willdurst.com.
San Francisco Values
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Hope you were hanging on to something solid last week, because this country lurched so hard to the left that half of Washington woke up with a wicked case of whiplash. No, make that most of Washington. And all of K Street. And the Republicans should be grateful. Because if it weren’t for Democratic persistence they wouldn’t still be able to file for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The electoral semi-tsunami means new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is next in line after Dick Cheney in presidential succession. In other words, she’s only two chicken bones away from the presidency. And Bush does not look like a picky eater. Does the term “unchewed pretzel” have any meaning here? Not to mention one loud noise takes Cheney out like that, leading to… President Pelosi. And to conservatives, that’s got to be scarier than a raw-meat bathing suit in a shark tank.
Since she’s the human embodiment of what right-wing talk show hosts refer to as (cue theme music from “Psycho”) the extreme agenda of San Francisco values, people all over the country are curious as to what exactly are these alarming values? Glad you asked. Pull up a chair, plop the kids in front of “CSI: Topeka” and let me tell you about Ms Pelosi and the den of iniquity she represents that serves as my home, the city named after Saint Francis of Assisi.
For those of you who can’t wait to get Nancy Pelosi down on the ground to shave her head and expose her horns, I regret to inform you they aren’t there. She’s a kindly old grandma now, and although her smile does look like some fiend is twisting a knobby pole inserted up her butt, the ironic part is, in San Francisco, this supposedly frighteningly extreme liberal is considered a moderate and often is protested by leftist factions for planting herself too deep in the mainstream and selling out. And yeah, some of those factions also believe the same is true of Fidel.
The best way to analyze “The City,” as we presumptively call ourselves, is to look to the movies. Like in “The Wizard of Oz,” when Dorothy says, “we’re not in Kansas anymore,” that’s our motto. Then, at the end of “Peter Pan,” where Tinker Bell almost dies and the only thing that can save her is audience applause. Well, that’s us too. We’re not Kansas and we clap for fairies. So what? Big deal. Who cares?
San Francisco beliefs center on the rights of the individual. Our biggest moral flaw is we hate judgmental people, a bit of an internal fallacy, I’ll admit. We go out of our way not to place restrictions on people or their actions or religions or appearances. When you think about it, what they’re really afraid of is the freedoms the citizens of San Francisco enjoy. That’s right, they hate us for our freedoms.
We may be part of America, but we’re the exception that proves the rule. You’ve heard of “thinking outside the box?” Well, we outlawed corners. We’re as far beyond that whole red/ blue thing as a sperm whale is beyond a toothpick. We’re not blue. We’re indigo. Eggplant. Plum. Aubergine. Periwinkle. And yes, a large percentage of us do know the difference between aubergine and periwinkle. And recent revelations seem to suggest that a large percentage of Americans do know the difference between hope and hopeless. And we revel in the fact that we are no longer the last pocket of resistance.
Comic, actor, writer, occasional radio talk show host Will Durst believes it’s important the world knows, that in San Francisco, Halloween is redundant.
Don’t Not Stay the Course
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Posted Tuesday Nov. 7, 2006 -------- If you need more proof that President George Bush is as clueless as a goldfish on a leash in a space shuttle, you obviously didn’t see him in all his counter-intuitive glory this week adamantly refuting the slogan of “staying the course” while keeping its policy EXACTLY THE SAME. That’s right, George Bush is cutting and running from “stay the course.” This doesn’t mean he’s a Defeatlican, though. Because “we are winning in Iraq and will continue to win.” And you’d better hope we do, because if this is winning, you really REALLY don’t want to see what losing looks like.
He went on to speak of the differences between “a timetable” and “benchmarks,” declaring one to be the way of the winner and the other the path to Loserville City. Now, as to which is which, your guess is as good as anybody’s. And that probably includes his own staff. It definitely includes Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who either has or hasn’t agreed to benchmarks or timetables or touchstones or yardsticks, although a Donald Rumsfeld yard sign looks to be entirely out of the question.
Straight lines. Stark choices. Bold differences. Say what you will about Mister Bush, that’s what he’s always stood for. “Us versus them.” “Good versus evil.” “Black versus white.” Now, that may be a great world view…for an eighth grader, but hey, in the last six years of fighting for the hearts and minds of American voters, it’s worked. Nuance is for sissies. Shades of grey: the way of the girly man. The White House is a place where the “b” in subtlety is not necessarily silent.
Of course, now that polls reflect we midterm electors are evidencing a wee bit of reluctance continuing in the President’s lemming footsteps marching lockstep over the Iraqi cliff of doom, Mr. Bush is determined to prove himself… flexible. Yes, the giant, clanking Oval Office robot is intent on demonstrating he has morphed into one of those pliable 14-year-old female Olympic gymnasts with that rubberizing agent still in their bones. President Iron Giant is no more. Long live President Olga Korbut.
The president did admit that he may be dissatisfied, but he’s not disillusioned. He’s patient, but his patience is not unlimited. Flexible but not spongy. A little bit country. And a little bit rock and roll. You say goodbye, I say hello. The war is going according to plan, but it’s a limber plan. Not a stay-the-concrete-course plan, but an elastic sort of course plan that we’re either staying or not. Kind of like one of those road races where you can cut across to the other side between the bales of hay.
So even the president has agreed that the phrase “stay the course” is a dirty word. And to all the Republicans candidates whom he seduced into repeating that phrase often enough to be used for opposition election ads, it won’t be long before the phrase “George Bush” is also a dirty word. And I envision a day not too far in the future when just mentioning the president’s name on the radio will result in getting hit by the FCC with a $350,000 fine… for obscenity.
Comic, writer, actor, former radio show host, FCC baiter, Will Durst, finds it ironic you can’t even try to pronounce the word “FCC” on the radio.
©2006 Will Durst. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television. His two CDs are available at laugh.com. Email Will at durst@willdurst.com
The Boogeyman
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
“If you don’t watch out, the Boogeyman is going to get you.”
When we were young, every one of us suffered a grandparent or a creepy weird uncle or a fat, pimply faced cousin who planted similar irrational fears in us. A psycho adult who got his jollies off by gleefully magnifying the shapeless dread of monsters lurking in the dark to susceptible children. Monsters who waited to gobble us up and skulked everywhere. Under the bed, in the back of the closet and pretty much the whole of the entire basement, especially behind the furnace. And still, that creepy weird uncle continues to frighten us with tales of the Boogeyman. And that psycho adult’s name is George Walker Bush.
For the last five years he has run his administration on the frightening fuel of the fear of monsters. “If we don’t watch out, the Boogeyman is going to get us.” And who is the Boogeyman to the president? Anybody different than him. Saddam Hussein was a Boogeyman. That president of Iran whose name he can’t pronounce is a Boogeyman. Scientists are the Oogie Boogeymen. And the Democrats are the Boogiest of all men. In a full term-and-a-half, the president’s major accomplishment has been to plant amorphous nightmares in our national subconscious and to fertilize them with nightly doses of BS.
Due to its cross-cultural prevalence in almost every country on the planet, scientists theorize the concept of the Boogeyman has been handed down from our stoop-backed, hairy-foreheaded ancestors who used such scare tactics to encourage their subanthropoidal tots to hang around the relative protection of the cave, semi-safe in the warmth of the tribe from the siren call of possible predators. And no, I’m not talking about Fox News and their obsession with Hillary Clinton, but if the monosyllabic snarls fit, grunt ‘em.
This, however, is the 21st Century. We’re supposed to be smarter now. Yes, terrorism exists. But in Great Britain and Israel and a lot of other civilized countries, they reconcile themselves to that fact and manage to expend their energies trying to solve it like a criminal activity and not obsess about it full time, curled in a fetal position shivering like a shaved poodle on an ice rink, fearful of the unknown. Of course, I am talking about countries where the term “intelligence agency” is not an oxymoron. Where staffs are manned by actual professionals, and not the buddies of ex-girlfriends’ roommates’ cousins.
America is tired of hiding from the Boogeyman. We’re tired of being grounded for asking questions about him. “Why? Because I said so.” That’s not a good enough answer anymore. We’re tired of being kept in a dark so complete not even the flickering glow of the truth can pierce it. Maybe, finally, this is the election where we climb out from under the covers, open the closet door and look under the bed and sweep a broom handle behind the back of the furnace. And start snapping the suspenders and poking the chests of the creepy old men scaring us with exaggerated tales about the Boogeyman. Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of some Republicans.
Comic, writer, actor, former radio show host, Will Durst, always imagined green- gilled, goat-breathed, mutant ogres poised to munch the bones of children. Then he shook hands with Tom DeLay and reformed his mental image.
Catch Durst in stand-up mode Oct. 24 though the 29th at the Improvisation in Washington, DC. 202-296-6988. Email durst@willdurst.com.
Dennis Hastert’s Crow-Plate Special
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Hubris. (Hyoo-bris) –noun. Excessive pride or self-confidence. Arrogance.
That’s the dry dictionary definition. But if you want to see hubris in all its gooey partisan glory, check out the machinations Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is going through as he twists and turns like a Chinese acrobat in zero gravity, reacting to the Congressional page scandal.
His first vault into the Olympics of sleaze was picking up the phone. Why? To express his outrage at Florida Republican Mark Foley’s inappropriate overtures to young boys? Unh, no. Okay, to console the families of the children ensnared in these lurid imprecations? Well, no, not precisely that either. Then, to demand an investigation into why the report on Foley’s behavior was buried by his office? Well, unh, no, no, not really, no. Wait! Wait! Let me think. Unh, no. No. ‘Fraid not.
He called to demand an investigation into who leaked the report. In the face of overwhelmingly lurid evidence, his major priority was to cover his ass. This guy is so transparent I’m surprised he hasn’t leased himself out during winter recess as a storm window. By refusing to investigate, he allowed a sexual predator to remain chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, which would be funny in a sad and degrading way if only it weren’t. But it does give a whole new meaning to “no child left behind.”
After receiving a quick pep talk from Team Bush about the best defense being a ludicrous offense, Hastert next began to lash out at the liberal press and claimed the scandal was a plot engineered by Democrats. His proof: with just a month before the election, the timing is too pat, AND it’s the perfect political strategy.
Let me see. Good timing, perfect political strategy. Naw, doesn’t sound like any Democrat I know. This charge is especially amusing when you realize what he’s saying is “Hey, it’s how we would have done it.”
The sticky questions facing the Speaker now are threefold. What did he know, when did he know it and has he ever eaten a meal with less than a pound of red meat covered in béarnaise sauce on the plate? I’m not saying he’s guilty simply because he bloated up like a poisoned toad, but dude, have you ever heard of vegetables? Carrots: supposed to be good for the eyes and might help you see the story you’ve been peddling is slipperier than the sweat on a wire-wearing lobbyist’s palm. First your office knew about Foley’s hinky emails a few weeks ago. Then it was earlier this year. Or was it last spring? Early 2005? Just answer this: first or second season of “Lost”?
Now a former aide to the Prince of Pages himself says he warned the Speaker’s Office three years ago that odd behavior was afoot. Did the House office supply clerk deliver defective calendars? We all know why Foley got a pass. Hard to rally the base when the Family Values Party morphs into the North American Man Boy Love Association Party. Especially during an election year.
And since the Speaker is destined to spend an inordinate amount of time in front of cameras explaining his calendar malfunctions, I’d suggest he’d lose a couple of pounds and try a salad with that hubris pie and side of crow he’s about to get stuffed down his throat. Maybe a raw wilted spinach salad.
Comic, writer, actor, former page-boy haircut wearer Will Durst wonders how soon before they try to lay all this on Clinton. Wait! Too late. They already tried.
Compassionate Torturer
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
I always tremble like a hamster duct-taped to a rototiller when George Bush struts into the spotlight on the world stage, as he did this week when addressing the U.N. The same feeling I get when San Francisco Giants closer Armando Benitez takes the mound in a save situation. It’s a cover-your-eyes and peek- through-your-fingers sort of thing. A breath-holding, whispered-prayers kind of time. Exciting, but not in what you call your good way. In a sweaty way.
Especially now, after six years of being a reluctant part of the studio-audience laugh track for his sitcom; we’ve seen his work, we know too much. So many things could screw up. What if the teleprompter goes awry and he tries to exercise his ad lib skills? Could he drag us into a war by mistake? Again? Suppose the first ADHD POTUS succumbs to the urge to wander around the General Assembly and begins to apply unrequested back rubs to female heads of state? Can a country be prosecuted for sexual harassment?
What if a second Red Bull encourages him to attempt to pronounce Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s name? In front of people? And what about his safety - aren’t we exposing him to unnecessary risk? Say he gets the munchies, pops some pretzels and starts choking. Again. Mightn’t the U.N. EMTs remember previously forgotten appointments once they discover the identity of their prone, blue patient?
Or, god forbid, he’ll start to lecture the international community on the subtle intricacies of the “moral high ground,” which apparently means speaking from the taller pile of dead enemy bodies. Or even worse, fleshes out his “compassionate torture” concept. Explain how America would never torture people. We just don’t want to rule it out. How what we utilize is properly called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” So having those car battery cables attached to that man’s nipples… isn’t torture, just “portable energy amplification.”
I’m sure getting branded “the devil” by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in New York was easy duty compared to a week of being branded “torture king” by renegade conservatives in DC. Besides, we all know the president isn’t the devil. Cheney is. The president is one of his eager little helpers. Like Renfield to Dracula. Kevin J. O’Connor in “The Mummy.” The Nazi-helping monkey in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Its obvious the president assumed his retroactive, military tribunal reform bill was going to be a slam dunk from a stepladder, but was confronted, not by obstructionist Democrats who regularly quiver in their frilly underwear when not sitting down to pee, but by three Republican Senators, who claim that if this bill passes, hold for it… our troops will be endangered.
You got to love the irony of the president having that phrase batted back into his face. And waving the oversized racquet is John McCain himself, whose graduate degree in the subject trumps the president’s skimming of the course description in the syllabus. We’re talking about someone who’s whose lived through torture. And no, I’m not talking about the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina. Mister President, please leave the torture business to people with some experience in it - Karl Rove, Howie Mandel and the U.N. translators of Hugo Chavez’s speech.
Comic, writer, actor, radio talk show host, moral high ground casualty, Will Durst, in answer to the question “Deal, or No Deal,” says “no deal.”
9-11 PLUS 5
Raging Moderate, by Will Durst
Monday was the fifth anniversary of IX-XI, and President Bush apparently decided to prepare us for our national day of mourning by delivering a week-long series of seminars on fear mongering. Okay, okay, maybe “fear mongering” is a bit much. Perhaps a better phrase would be “PR campaign of cheap political calculation,” or “systematic exploitative pandering,” or “a typical sleazy example from the Karl Rove electioneering handbook.” Or as we have to come know it during the last six years: “business as usual.”
First Dubyah played the Nazi card, calling Democratic plans for a phased withdrawal of our forces from Iraq an appeasement similar to Chamberlain’s treatment of Hitler in 1939. I’m surprised he didn’t unveil secret footage of Nancy Pelosi brandishing a rolled-up umbrella. Then he played the Red Menace card invoking Lenin and intimating a hammer and cycle tattoo on Howard Dean’s forehead invisible only due to a thickly slapped-on layer of Dark Egyptian Number 4 makeup.
And if these two jack-booted images don’t do the trick, expect to hear him summon up other more ancient scourges like the Huns and the Mongols and the Visigoths in his never-ending quest to keep Americans all aquiver so we run and hide behind his urban-camouflaged pants right up until the clock strikes 8 p.m. PST, November 7, 2006. Screw Hawaii.
Uncharacteristically, Democrats refused to curl up in their customary flinching fetal position at the sound of the president’s big bad rhetoric, and ratcheted up their criticism of his war policies calling for the institutionalized bitch-slapping of Donald Rumsfeld in a transparently futile attempt to get the secretary of defense to join 10,000 Intel workers in next month’s unemployment line. Predictable as a papier-mâché roof in a Category 3 Hurricane? Yes. But as they say about fire, it takes politics to fight politics.
White House spokesman Tony Snow knee-slapped and guffawed and scoffed at the Democrats’ proposal stating that portraying Rumsfeld as a bogeyman “may make for good politics but makes for lousy strategy.” And one can’t immediately discount that opinion because if anybody has experience with lousy strategies, its this White House.
An administration that strategized the best way to stem terrorist activity was to invade a country that had none. An administration that stragetized that applying car battery contacts to a prisoner’s nipples was not torture because it wasn’t life threatening. An administration that stragetized that causing the death of over 100,000 non-combatant Iraqis was going to win over the hearts and minds of their countrymen. An administration that considers the best strategist to be the one who finds the biggest stick. Do the names Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and John Bolton have any meaning here?
In just one of his series of deep-tissue massages of fear and loathing, Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden by name 18 times, conveniently neglecting to mention it was HE who DISBANDED the CIA division devoted to finding the six-foot seven-inch Arabian guy traipsing around the Kyhber Pass dragging behind him a solar powered kidney dialysis machine from the Islamabad Sharper Image catalog.
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the president spoke to the country of bin Laden: “He can run but he can’t hide.” You know what, it’s been five years. I think they’re both hiding. One behind the billowing skirts of the other.
Comic, writer, actor, radio talk show host, burden to his family, Will Durst, after his vacation, doesn’t need Dark Egyptian Number 4.
Email Will at willdurst@sbcglobal.net. .
