Deck Chairs Afoot


With the sudden resignation of the Sanibel Spook and the possible appointment of a compliant 4-star situational constitutionalist as CIA Director, Stephen Colbert’s Hindenburg variation of the Titanic deck chair line, as a description of the remaining Bush year(s), is looking ever more prescient.
Is it the Rapture or something more sinister in the offing?
Mr. Bush, that hapless novice of neo diplomatic nuance, sort of telegraphed a confirmation of that nagging national suspicion in a not too widely reported interview with CNBC Friday.
While describing a desire to see the new movie about United Airlines Flight #93, the President, for the first time and in a manner reminiscent of “crusade” and “bring it on”, described the former War on Terror as “World War III”:

“I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III. It was, it was unbelievably heroic of those folks on the airplane to recognize the danger.”

In the curious, sad and high-style old Soviet manner in which we over interpret the “reality” mirrored in the corporate media tea leaves, an eerie confirmation flows from the cable nets’ purposeful dithering, the increasing cross media occurrence of outright scripting and certain particular blackouts of sometimes salacious and once highly newsworthy national developments.
Somebody’s game seems to certainly be afoot and America, increasingly, seems purposefully and intentionally ill prepared and weakened.

Modified Image: Ebay, Google, Reuters, Warner Bros.
- posted by Sean @ 6:00 PM 0 comments  

 
Yellow Matter Custard...


Today, thankfully, is Scott MCClellan's last official press briefing.
In light of the Colbert controversy and the alleged clubbiness of the Washington press corps, I found this post on the blog MediaBistro.com most interesting:

Following the briefing, there will be a party for Scott in the basement, with various reporters having spent last night slaving over baked goodies.

Somehow, given my spookie understanding of the modern day press, I have to imagine these "baked goodies" will not be made from scratch.
A couple of microwaved Entenmann's, a Betty Crocker Spring Fruit Pizza and maybe a Duncan Hines Boston Cream Pie or two should ease these enterprising go-getters into a couple of exclusive self-serving leaks and maybe a Laura Bush availability.

Photo: Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 12:19 PM 0 comments  

 
Would you believe...


Unbelievably, mainstream press attempt to minimize Stephen Colbert stinging satire of President Bush and his media fluffers continues into a 6th day or 12+ neo news cycles.
The Los Angeles Times picks up the fingerprint-heavy baton this morning to club the Comedy Central host with a more provocative, they’re hoping, criticism; Colbert showed us his “rage”.
Easily manipulated American simpletons just have to understand that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner requires “a dance of decorum…it's akin to a corporate date.”
Well now, there you have it.
Colbert was on a corporate date with our CEO pretzeldent…a date requiring complete and total subservience.
Memo to C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, new President of the WHCA:
Acquire rohypnol for next year’s comic.
With no real retro rohypnosis of Colbert possible, the American people are, once again, wheedled into accepting a state of affairs contrary to evidence witnessed by sober eyeballs.
I watched Colbert live on C-SPAN Saturday evening.
The LAT spitefully wonders about people like me, “I mean, what kind of loser is home on a Saturday night watching C-SPAN?”
Maybe, judging by web reports, the kind who really enjoys watching Mr. Bush ridiculed in public?
C-NET News is reporting that various videos of Colbert’s performance at C-SPAN.org, YouTube and iFilm “generated more than a half million viewings” by this past Wednesday.
Interestingly, the LA Times and C-NET News also report that C-SPAN “requested” YouTube remove the video uploads because “the airing of the video violated its copyright.”
Anyone want to explain how the supposedly impartial C-SPAN can hold a copywrite on public events?

NOTE--The great people at Crooks and Liars have posted the ABC News footage of President Bush crankily reacting to Stephen Colbert's pre-produced videotape at last Saturday's WHCA dinner.
It's a small image but it's facinating viewing.

Photo: AFP-Getty
- posted by Sean @ 1:49 AM 1 comments  

 
Ex Post Facto


More excruciating material from the presidential slideshow delivered to the 2004 Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner:

On long flights, the staff and I often play cards... Actually, this is on the way to the G8 summit. Once I got these trading cards, it's easy to remember the names of the foreign leaders. (Laughter and applause.)

Photo: Fugafuga.com
- posted by Sean @ 10:07 PM 0 comments  

 

Sometime yesterday afternoon, the cornered beast of mainstream corporate media stopped pretending Stephen Colbert’s satirical weekend tour de force didn’t happen or crossed some heretofore unknown boundary of neo imperial decorum.
While the Chicago Tribune's Frank James “sensed a lot of uneasiness in the audience during Colbert's routine”, a reader of the New York Times sensed a purposeful vanishing with a bit of a known unknown:

“I was stunned to read your recounting of the White House Correspondents' Dinner…which did not mention the bravura performance of Stephen Colbert.”

Sputtering and flat-footed, our endangered-by-satire media denies any neo blacklist of the Comedy Channel star and now seems to have settled on the spin first uttered by fleeing Bush aides Saturday night:

“Colbert crossed the line.”

Media suspects quickly lined up to chirp a truthier tune:

“I just think he wasn't terribly funny. And he had the misfortune of following Bush, who actually did put on one of the better performances of his presidency."
--Dana Milbank, The Washington Post

"This was predictable, Bush-bashing kind of humor…this room thought he was going to be more sophisticated and creative."
--Mary Matalin, Unemployed Housewife

“Stephen Colbert stupidly delivered a stingingly satirical speech.”
--Lisa de Moralis, The Washington Post

“The routine could've used some judicious editing.”
--Scott Collins, The Los Angeles Times

“Just not funny.”
--Steve Doocy, Fox News

It seems like only yesterday (2004) that a certain comic genius provoked hysterical laughter from our dour media with an edgy slide show:

Look under the dead bodies, sir!

Images: Google, R&TVCA, WHCA
- posted by Sean @ 2:29 PM 0 comments  

 

As we mark today’s 3rd anniversary of what has become George W. Bush’s embarrassing Mission Not Quite Accomplished, let us reflect on the alleged glories of Mr. Potato Pants.


Our padded, costumed and poorly read leader has faced many photo op challenges over these many years but none as daunting or nearly as quasi-believable as the painful testicular bondage endured while being shamefully photographed and mainstream media buffed on the sunset-kissed flight deck of the USS Lincoln in 2003.
Fresh from Mr. Bush’s painful upstaging at the hands of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert this past Saturday evening and before today’s glorious anniversary of flight-suited foolery, our crimson-cheeked leader assembled yet another horde of swaggering goons to, this time, magic marker our brave hero Colbert out of mainstream media consciousness and rewrite the third anniversary of the USS Lincoln fiasco as something other than gross neoconservative hubris and political grandstanding.
Let us fill our freshly rinsed mental void with a few of the dusk-colored words uttered by our always boldly scripted Mr. Bush on that time-lost flight deck:

Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness…Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history…I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld…America is grateful for a job well done…Iraqi civilians…saw strength and kindness and good will…we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians…Our war against terror is proceeding according to the principles that I have made clear…The war on terror is not over…but we have seen the turning of the tide.

Only this morning, and without the comforting support of a hidden potato or prop troops, Mr. Bush, again, claimed yet another Iraqi tide/corner turned as his kissing Saudi cousins announced they have significantly reduced the price of gasoline for domestic Saudi consumers.

NOTE--I would have posted early this morning had Blogger been working...sorry.

Photos: AFP, Playskool, Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 5:28 PM 0 comments  

 
"The most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."


Oh my God!
Acidic satire, in the lean form of Stephen Colbert, grabbed the Washington establishment last evening by their delicate lacey ruffs and held them up to a bitingly funny and horribly accurate spoof of their mass destructive failings:

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Word is that Captain Bunnypants and Empress "Corrina" were not amused.
The neo Imperial couple were not alone before the sharp knives of the Comedy Channel as the dining room, too, seemed discomforted by Stephen's truthiness...Well, except for a completely rehabilitated (raised to the head table by dint, no doubt, of co-starring with Stephen in his video) and triumphant former White House Correspondents' Association dean turned pariah, Helen Thomas.
The President, only a few days ago, plaintively whined, in response to a question regarding critical Generals and Rumsfeld's fate, "People's reputations are at stake" :

"If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle."

Last evening Mr. Colbert gave the Beltway Terrorists an overdue taste of the already over-ripe remnants of what, once, were reputations.

Modified Image: The Colbert Report
- posted by Sean @ 10:16 AM 0 comments