Assistant To the Quote of the Day

"I want to thank the Kennedy Center, or, as it will soon be known, the Tea Party Bowling Alley and Rifle Range."

-- Tina Fey, during her acceptance speech for the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize last night

Quote of the Day

"I think Manning, if he did what he's accused of, is the most heroic political figure of the last decade at least."

-- Glenn Greenwald on alleged Wikileak whistleblower Pvt. Bradley Manning

Of course you do, Glenn. I'd expect nothing less.

It's this kind of sanctimonious liberal hyperbole that makes me think that at this point Greenwald's basically just saying shit to get everyone to pay attention to him.

It's okay, champ. There, there. We think you're somebody.

American Splendor

So let me see if I've got this right: The entire city of New Orleans drowns and the government of the United States of America is completely stymied in its efforts to get help to it (and the people who are dying within it).

A cruise ship with a bunch of tourists on it gets stuck off the West Coast and -- and you have to say this slowly for the full effect -- THE U.S.S. RONALD REAGAN comes to the rescue and airlifts in supplies within 24 hours.

New Orleans: Fucked.

The Carnival Splendor: AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

USA Today: USS Ronald Reagan Sails To Aid of Stranded Carnival Splendor/11.9.10

Listening Post

This has been my favorite piece of music on this planet since the first time I heard it at the age of maybe four.

It remains the most profoundly beautiful and moving thing I've ever heard.

Here's Debussy's Clair de Lune.

Point and Shoot

You know, if history is any indication, poor Lawrence O'Donnell had better invest in Kevlar.

The Huffington Post: Lawrence O'Donnell "Socialist" Claim Is Evidence of Looming, Violent "Event"/11.9.10

My favorite part about this ratshit lunacy is that it not-so-inconspicuously mirrors the 9/11 truthers' nonsensical "false flag terrorism" claim -- proving that a ridiculous conspiracy theory is a ridiculous conspiracy theory, regardless of which direction it's coming from. And right now, nobody traffics in that kind of baseless crap like Glenn Beck.

Speaking of which, who exactly is pushing the "everything's going to hell, but I'm here to hold your hand and help you through it" meme harder than anybody at the moment -- and doing it for thoroughly self-serving reasons?

Deception Points

I'll make this quick.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder; whether that's true or not, time certainly has a way of helping to whitewash the sins of the past. With that in mind, two years isn't nearly enough distance from the colossal failure that was the Bush presidency for me to be willing to forget or forgive George W. Bush's myriad transgressions, let alone start warming up to the guy -- and it's a testament to why I disliked him so intensely as a person that he's shamelessly arrogant enough to think that he can step right back into the spotlight, pretty much where he left off a couple of years back, and go right on literally rewriting history as if nothing happened and no one will notice.

I won't lie and say that I'm going to read the book he's currently hawking, the one he's tawdrily referring audiences to whenever anyone asks him a question he knows he can't answer -- as if somehow all will be revealed within its pages, which you know damn well isn't the case. A perfect example of why I won't read is in the quick quote from the book currently on display over at the Huffington Post, where Bush engages in almost mind-bogglingly laughable revisionism when describing those glacial seven minutes that followed Andy Card telling him that two planes had just hit the World Trade Center and America was currently under attack. Watch Bush predictably substitute swaggering bravado and steely calm for the pissing-his-pants terror that we all know was really the case:

"My first reaction was outrage. Someone had dared attack America. They were going to pay. Then I looked at the faces of the children in front of me. I thought about the contrast between the brutality of the attackers and the innocence of those children. Millions like them would soon be counting on me to protect them. I was determined not to let them down.

I saw reporters at the back of the room, learning the news on their cell phones and pagers. Instinct kicked in. I knew my reaction would be recorded and beamed throughout the world The nation would be in shock; the president could not be. If I stormed out hastily, it would scare the children and send ripples of panic throughout the country."

It reads exactly like what it is: that scene in every hacky Hollywood movie where the supposed tough guy cowers during the big fight then steps out once it's all over, tries to compose himself and begins boasting to his suddenly embarrassed-for-him girlfriend about what he was just getting ready to do. That's what George W. Bush is -- what he's always been: A sad cliché. A fuck-up with delusions of heroic grandeur. A buffoon whose self-confidence is surpassed only by his lack of self-awareness -- who can't even begin to comprehend how bloody incompetent he really was and is. He's David Brent with a body count.

And, no, two years isn't nearly enough time for me to be willing to rethink my views on the eight years before them.

Quote of the Day

"Sarah Palin is 'just a former governor and current housewife from Alaska, but even humble folks like (her) can read the newspaper.' Reading’s one thing. Comprehending’s another."

-- Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review, body-slamming Sarah Palin for lashing out at the Wall Street Journal (on Twitter, of course) and criticizing one of its columnists, all while misquoting both

My favorite thing about this quote is that it's basically the line from A Fish Called Wanda where Kevin Kline's idiot Otto character defiantly tells Jamie Lee Curtis's Wanda that he can't be a stupid ape because, "Apes don't read Nietzsche," to which Wanda responds, "Yes they do -- they just don't understand it."