Maggie's Farm

When a snake-oil salesman has the crowd going good, the last thing he needs is someone in the crowd getting wise and breaking the mood. That's why they always have a shill in the audience, trying to keep the vibe going. Well, Bill Clinton had the mood going the way he wanted, but a crummy made for TV movie is mucking up his act. The shills are muffing it for him, and he knows it.

Now, Bill Clinton was two presidents, really; he spent his first term as a the most orthodox of liberals, trying to nationalize the healthcare industry like some Arkansan Peron. The voters slapped his nose, hard, with Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton 2.0 signed the the conservative's Welfare Reform bill and NAFTA, then settled in to his second term as a sort of Democrat version of Warren G. Harding.

He spent a lot of time trying to cobble together some narrative that would serve as his legacy, but his legacy was both defined and degraded by his shameful behavior and the lengths he would go to avoid facing up to the essential infantilism of his tenure.

And it's hard to get around it: Bill Clinton had nothing to offer on the central problem of the post Soviet Union age: Islamic totalitarianism. Neither he nor any of his acolytes identified the danger that would sweep into the vacuum left by the collapse of the CCCP, and they slashed the Defense budget, cheated at golf and just plain cheated, and waited around for Monica to bring him a pizza. But hindsight for his followers is not 20/20, it's blind; how many people even remember the World Trade Center was bombed the first time while he was president? Clinton's Whitehouse just worked overtime to make sure that the intelligence agencies never talked to each other, and never told him anything he didn't want to hear.

But almost by mistake, the idea that Clinton slept while Osama Bin Laden worked late was broached, and Clinton desperately wants to get that toothpaste back in the tube.

The president is never really "on vacation," They all go places remote from the WhiteHouse, but the duties, responsibilities, the staff -- all of the machinery of government -- never sleep. But there is a limited amount of attention any chief executive can pay to their duties, and Clinton seemed then, as we are being reminded now, to be preoccupied with all sorts of pointless and self-serving folderol to the detriment of the United States, and in its turn, the whole wide world.

Clinton doesn't like that idea to be out in the ether, because the image he's trying to cultivate of his time in office pops like a bubble under close inspection. He was doing pretty good for a while, considering how many things that belonged to America got blown up while he was in office. But Sandy Berger can't stuff everything down his pants, after all. And Clinton's taken to shouting at everybody that will listen to him, going back into his old playbook for the only thing that has ever worked for him: pretending to be the poor victim of an unfair attack, while viciously attacking his opponents.

So I leave you, dear reader, with visual evidence, intentionally made to make Bill Clinton seem like what he was not, which was charming; and unintentionally showing you exactly what he was, and is: a shameless pandering slacker, always on the make for attention, never paying attention when it matters:

What President Clinton was doing while Osama bin Laden planned the second World Trade Center attack.

We were fishing through the cut-out bin at the used record store and came across this gem. If Punxsutawney Chavez comes out of his hole and sees the shadow of El Diablo Bush, do we get six more weeks of $2.25 per gallon gasoline?

We were going through the cut out bin at the used vinyl store and came across this one. Oldie but Goodie. I only vaguely remember their smash hit, but I'm told it's a real toe-tapper. I wonder if it will climb the charts again as a re-release?

I have my doubts.

I love those old sword and sandal movies. They show huge swaths of the majestic deserts of the Middle East, and take in huge swaths of the media and the public. Look on the bright side; perhaps Fitzgerald will become the spokesman for the NRA someday. Armitage? I'm afraid he's gone and got himself thrown under the chariot.

DEMOCRATS SETTLE ON OPINION ON THE CRIMEAN WAR THEY'VE ALWAYS HAD.

Announce plans to weigh in with exquisitely nuanced position on World War One that they had all along next week.

In a blistering attack on the Bush Administration, the Democratic National Committee outlined their position on the Crimean War this week.

"President Bush and his Administration have no credibility left when it comes to the war in the Crimea, yet they continue to engage in partisan attacks, misleading the American, Russian, French, British and Sardinian people about the real state of affairs in The Danubian Principalities. The disclosure of this latest report outlining growing chaos and violence in Sebastopol undermines the President's deceptive proclamations that things are going smoothly in The Crimea. The Bush Administration should release this report so that the American people can have an accurate assessment of the facts on the ground, not more White House propaganda. While The Holy Land continues to slip into civil war and hamper our ability to fight the war on Czarists, with Prince Menshikov still on the loose, even if he is dead, and the Sultan Abu-ul-Majiid  gaining ground in the Bosporus, and the Mahdi has set up shop in The Ottoman Empire. That's all bad, we think; and if it's not, then we don't. BushCo. refuses to offer any leadership on the issue."

"A majority of Americans now believe that this immoral and illegal war for BushCo's ancestor's Big (Olive) Oil buddies in Sardinia was a mistake and agree with Democrat's call to begin responsible redeployment of our troops to Gibraltar so that we can fight and win the war on Barbary Pirates, if the topic comes up again. Republicans in Congress have rubber-stamped the President's failed policy 150 years retroactively and refused to hold him accountable for this commitment to a failed strategy in the Dardanelles. But, in November, the American people will hold Republicans responsible for their inept leadership and continued support for Bush's bad policies."

Senator Kerry, stumping for votes among the little people from the deck of his yacht, announced he would hurl his Crimean War Medal bearing the likeness of his great-aunt and cousin Queen Victoria, the two clasps for the battles of Alma and Inkermann,  the clasp for the battle of Balaklava, the clasp for the fall of Sebastopol, the clasp awarded to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines for actions in the Sea of Azoff, over the big black fence outside Buckingham Palace. Two weeks later, he pledges to throw the same medals over the White House fence. They will be on display after that in his Senate office, inspiring him to greater heights of fury as he works on the latest version of the opinion he's always had on the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Note to my other beloved Maggie's Farm contributors: If you want to work my side of the street, you must be prepared for Roger to bring it.

Editor: Maybe you have to be an older Yankee to remember that face: the masculine Mike Dukakis, in the Big Dig, finally paying off Tip O'Neill's bar bill.

Apparently "Quinnipiac" is Algonquin for: "Not so fast, Mr. Green Pants with whales on them."

Does Bruce Jenner know Castro's raiding his wardrobe?

Maggie's Farm can neither confirm nor deny that the suspects were handcuffed to one another of their own free will.

Reuters didn't need to retouch any smoke into this one, no sirree. you can feel the heat right through the internet, can't you? But there's something not quite right with the photo... I can't quite put my finger on it.

Of course! George Bush is wearing a sailor outfit,no doubt to try to distract us from his shameful Texas Air National Guard record.

Typical Bush.

There's an awful lot of ink and pixels being spilled over the Reuters use of obviously photoshopped images, as well there should be. We've taken a crack at the absurd angle of it here as well. But...

It is interesting to read all the thousands of column inches appearing magically to eviscerate Reuters, and to see the unanimity of the analysis. I feel as though I am standing in a herd of elephants, and the blogosphere is asking me if I've seen a mouse.

The photoshopped image of Beirut burning, and the Israeli jet plane with the phony ordnance dubbed in, are not "made up." That is to say, Beirut was burning a bit, and that was an Israeli plane doing something.

So what are we looking at? Hyperbole, at the least; exaggeration for effect. As you know, this can be a sort of benign tumor - a simple lust for attention, a digital tall story more suited to the barroom than the newsroom. Or it can be yoked to a hidden purpose -the malignant cancer-propaganda.

Since Mr Hajj, and Reuters, don't seem to be in the market for airbrushing things out of their pictures, I imagine that their shenanigans mesh nicely with their worldview, and so their efforts are more to the Joe Goebbels end of the spectrum than the Paris Hilton. It's not: "look at me," it's:"will you look at that."

So what's the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room? It's not: "I'll never trust the pictures in the paper again." Why did you trust them before, exactly? That's not the problem. This is:

WHAT ABOUT THE WORDS?

You remember words don't you? They are those things that have been acoompanying those misleading pictures since before there were pictures to accompany, and the words had to try to give you the wrong impression all by themselves.

The obvious folderol with the images in question only shows that the suppliers are getting brazen. They have reported barefaced falsehoods and misrepresentation with such impunity for so long they don't feel the need to simply choose the angle they wish to portray anymore. They're not picking cherries, they're  chopping down the media cherry trees now.

The "reporting" in the media --what is said and what is written -- is every bit as "photoshopped" for effect as those pictures. Events are seen only through the prism of the desired effect. And the words are carefully chosen to achieve a desired result at the la-di-da outlets like the New York Times, and hamfistedly filigreed at the other end of the media dial, the internet. But the idea is the same: What used to be "news" is replaced with editorial. What used to be "editorial" is now the journalistic equivalent of a streetcorner rant from a deranged lunatic. And the streetcorner lunatic? He's not talking anymore. He's got an entry level job for Reuters, and AP, and the New York Times, and the Washington Post, and CBS, and TruthOut! and all the others caught red-handed every day either making stuff up and reporting it as news, or convoluting the reportage so profoundly that it no longer should qualify as even vaguely factual. And you're dreaming if you think that getting caught is going to change their outlook. They are not very very sorry they did it. They are very very sorry they got caught. The method will improve. The approach will stand.

I've been reading the news for a long time, trying to parse what the hell might have actually happened out of the subtle and not so subtle shinola. I stopped paying attention to the TV news a long time ago altogether, because my intelligence can be insulted in print faster than having the wrong pages of a bad newspaper read to me slowly by hair farmers.

Nice to see the digital age is catching up with me.

Hard hitting. That's Reuters. Getting to the bottom of things. By digging up from underneath, mostly. Well, rooting around down there, anyway. They're on no one's side - but their own. Well, them and the Green Helmet Guy, anyway.

Reuters-They get the stories others miss --because the others don't care enough about the truth to make it up for you when you really need it.

Let's fix everything today. It should be easy. First, we'll tell the Israelis and the Palestinians and Hezbullah and Syria and Iran and all those stans to knock it off. Lebanon has nice beaches if they're not mined.

Now,let's move on to the domestic front.

Let's fix everything right away. Difficult? For some yes, but I'm exceptional. Make me emperor for a day. I promise to change only one thing. Then I'll turn it back over to the knucklehea...I mean our elected representatives.

Hmm. Change one thing, fix everything.

I've got it. Here's my edict:

No one is allowed to teach school of any kind until they are 65 years old and retired from a career, the military, or childrearing. Period.

Let's see. First of all, the quality of all instruction will improve dramatically. Teachers will no longer just parrot some Chomsky rant they learned two summers ago. They would have had to make a living for forty odd years first, and the only person that can make a living talking like that is Chomsky.

Discipline will improve with crabby old people heading the classes. They're frailer, but mean as hell. Life does that to a person.

We'll end the icky sex between the teachers and the students. Even if the viagra spam gets through the AOL filters to the elderly teachers, they'll be 30 years past getting anybody of schoolage interested. More problems solved.

Children will actually learn things again. When your next bed will be one with a lid, you have a sense of urgency about your approach. Old coots will bang those facts into those dense heads as fast as they can so as not to interrupt their afternoon naps with dolts hanging around after school. They'll all be smart by noon-time.

We'll be able to go back to paying our teachers crappy again. They'll be retired already, hopefully set for life, but in any case they won't have to worry about their Social Security checks bouncing, because the tens of millions of former teachers will be out doing something productive and paying taxes, instead of touring Europe each summer. Or else. Pay those old farts like top shelf Wal*Mart greeters, and let them clout the kids on the ear if they act up--they'll line up in droves to get the job.

You are on a horse, galloping at a constant speed. On your right side is a sharp drop-off, and on your left side is an elephant traveling at the same speed as you. Directly in front of you is a galloping kangaroo and your horse is unable to overtake it. Behind you is a lion running at the same speed as you and the Kangaroo.

What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

If you do not know, see answer below...................

Get your drunk ass off the merry-go-round!

"One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'."

Sir Winston Churchill

The world is in turmoil. We stand at the brink of a regional war in the mideast. Gas prices have doubled; the stock market gyrates and fluctuates at even a whiff of trouble. Apocalypse looms; contagion and misery rear their ugly heads daily. Seas rise up in anger and consume whole villages; the earth shakes and groans under the weight of its jostling billions.

What can a person do?

Why, get dressed up in a metal bikini and pose for pictures, of course; and post them all at:

Leia's Metal Bikini dotcom

Saving the universe, one Marriott Function Room at a time.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.                                                 

Mark Twain

The University of Wisconsin at Madison has, in their wisdom, hired a certain Mr. Barrett to teach a course called "Introduction to Islam." Mr. Barrett has founded an organization called: "The Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9-11 Truth." That sounds nice, if a nightmare for the caterers; people of many faiths getting together to... hey! What's this "truth" he's talking about?

''The physics of those collapses clearly could not have resulted from plane crashes and jet fuel fires with office materials.'' Barrett says jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel, and says recent tests on melted steel from the building prove his theory that it was wired to collapse, by the Government. 

  Barrett says the Bush Administration is fooling the American public with the Adolf Hitler 'Big Lie Technique'...

 Out there in Iowa...I mean Wisconsin... That's truth with a capital "T" and that spells out Trouble!

the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance, which claims the Bush administration planned the attacks to create a war between Muslims and Christians. He argues that members of the faiths must work together to overcome the belief that terrorists were to blame.

"The 9/11 lie was designed to sow hatred between the faiths," Barrett has written on the organization's Web site.

"Either we discuss the compelling evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, or there is precious little to talk about."

Oh, I see. George Bush is a crazy lunatic that wants to foment war with the Muslims. Hmmm. Well, since George Bush is the President, I guess he can do that without all the genocidal urban renewal Mr Barrett figures he needs to undertake, but hey, I'm not the expert. Apparently, Mr. Barrett is. He claims to know all about the structural properties of skyscrapers, and the ramifications, if you'll pardon the term, of ramming big airplanes filled with jet fuel into them. Who are we to quibble? He's got degrees in Arabic and African Folklore. Those come in handy when you're setting rebar in concrete, no doubt.

He's  a deep thinker, Mr Barrett:

9/11 was designed by non-religious, Machievellian-Straussian cynics who believe that hatred and hostility are what move the world. By uniting for 9/11 truth we are standing up for love and compassion against their hatred. And we are standing up for astonishment and awe against their cynicism. For them, it was just a minor special effects extravaganza, put together by Hollywood specialists to manipulate audience emotion and pave the way for war—a slightly more realistic version of Wag the Dog. For them, the deaths of a few thousand people mean very little..

Astonishment and awe? I thought it was "shock and awe." And he wants to do swell things by talking about this stuff:

Kevin Barrett will discuss strategies for turning the 9/11 psychological warfare operation against its perpetrators, and using 9/11 truth as a "magic bullet" that could demilitarize the American economy, overthrow corrupt elites, turn attention and resources toward pressing environmental concerns, and usher in a new era of peace and justice.

Hmm. Magic bullets. What, no magic beans?

Now when someone tells me they want me to believe them about one thing, so they can get me to do something else, I wonder about the veracity of that thing I'm supposed to believe. Like when bums ask you for money for food. Sometimes, I hate to disappoint you, but they spend the money you give them on booze and drugs. That's just FYI; I don't want to cast aspersions on hobos by associating them with Mr Barrett.

And so if Mr. Barrett wishes to have me pay attention to his beliefs on environmental concerns and so forth, which seem, well, not germane to discussions of mass murder, and to get me to do so by accusing the President of the United States, along with large numbers of other persons in the government and military necessary to mount such an audacious scheme, I have but one question for him. Just the one.

Well, we've already explained the Cult of the Daily Kos here: Daily Kos is the Amway of Bile  And that was before we found out you weren't getting your platinum level member's card and special introductory Bushitlerburton T-shirt unless your moon was in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars.

Well, peace won't rule the planet because you vent your spleen over and over in a chat room. It's our contention that Markos Moulitsas would be shoving food out a hole in a wall if he didn't preside over that coven of contentiousness, The Daily Kos; but what about his minions? Umm --toadies! Er, running dog lackeys, yeah, that's it! Nah, his, his, well, let's see... let's be polite: his commenters. What the hell makes them congregate together, simultaneously proclaiming they are an ascendant majority and a tiny vanguard minority, always being unfairly portrayed by the media and betrayed by shady cabals everywhere? What's their story?

Enchiridion Militis thinks he knows: They're the 2006 version of the John Birch Society.

Professional boxing used to be a sport. I guess it's become an exhibition of sorts now, like The Harlem Globetrotters or wrestling. But it used to matter. It doesn't anymore.

We like violence just fine, that's not the problem. Children playing Grand Theft Auto by the forty hour weekload wouldn't wince at gloved hands and open cuts. It's simply collapsed under its own weight. The spectacle itself became subordinate to the machinations of the promoters.

The urge to look at your fellow man and declare: "I can lick you," or to choose a champion in your stead smolders unabated. It is an elemental male imperative. And such urges do not long go unsated. If boxers won't do it anymore, we'll do it ourselves, many young males say. Anyone that has listened to their children in a garage band knows we'll do it ourselves is a two edged sword. But it points to something missing, something essential; a need unmet.

Here's the last time professional boxing really mattered; please, do not tell me about Mike Tyson: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.  (video and music)

And don't misunderstand; it was Joe Frazier that had the heart.

     Why reject the faux socialism masquerading as Democrat activist politics these days? Because it's no damn fun.

     They're all just cranks standing on the corner screaming at the traffic and holding placards that read: "The Werld Will End Yesterday." They're always crabby and narrow and in a huff. And they invest every one of their damp farts with the authority of a press release. It' s a sad thing when they display their female armpit hair gone gray as they hold their "Scooter Libby is the Anti-Christ" placards over their heads. Sakes, lighten up.

     It's the "facists" (Their spelling; what's with the spelling? they've been to college for nine years) and the old fashioned Democrats that are having all the fun. We're smoking big cigars and telling jokes and drinking good booze and doting on our children and avoiding headaches by staying out of Post Modern Art museums and Eminem concerts. And a deer hunter knows infinitely more about nature than some PETA fanatic that's never been anywhere not served by a subway, handing out misspelled screeds outside a KFC.

     Those "evildoers" are just that, doers; doing real things and having real fun while you Che Shirt snivelers mewl 24/7 that Bush is Hitler and Rove is Goebbels and Bill Gates is Satan and Wal*Mart is Hades and Crude oil is brimstone-- and get this: Al Gore is smart. Put a sock in it, Muffie and Biff. You're forever in the audience, and at the wrong show, to boot.

     You know who's funny? Mark Steyn is funny. It's easy to be funny, when he's making fun of you:

Herewith, "A Call To Celebrities To Conserve":1) Instead of using your air-conditioning system on hot summer days, why not have Barbra and her current husband, actor James Brolin, over for lunch? Ask James how his movie career's going. You'll soon notice the sudden chill in the room!

2) Recycle! Those old breast implants you had taken out? Pop them in the freezer and you'll find they make excellent cold compresses on humid afternoons!

3) In the evenings, cut down on your energy usage by keeping the room as dim as possible. An easy way to do this is to invite Alec Baldwin and Julia Roberts round to discuss politics.

Read the whole thing here.

IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...

[The Wealthy Congressman] "Representative Patrick Kennedy has pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs last month in an early morning car crash near the Capitol.  

Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat who is a member of one of the nation's most famous political families, was sentenced on Tuesday in District of Columbia Superior Court to court- ordered drug treatment, a year of probation and a $350 fine. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to drop charges of reckless driving and failure to display a driving permit."     

[The Poor Window Washer]    " High-rise window washer Christopher Guay spent 20 hours in jail waiting for his wife to raise the $1,040 the state demanded to free him after he struck and killed a sea gull he says repeatedly dive-bombed at him as he was attempting to clean office windows. "

... it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity...

[The Wealthy Congressman] "Kennedy denied that and insisted he had not consumed alcohol before the accident. He said he had gone home after work that evening and had taken the sleeping pill Ambien and an anti- nausea medication, Phenergan.

Medical experts called his explanation plausible. Ambien's prescribing information warns about the possibility of hallucinations and strange behavior."

 [The Window Washer]  "Guay said he was working 12 stories up atop 185 Devonshire St. about 8:30 a.m. Friday when he was set upon by three sea gulls protecting a rooftop nest. 

    “They’d sit up about 20 feet, then dive in,” he said. “They hit me twice in the head.”

    Guay said he moved to an attached roof at 161 Devonshire St., but the gulls followed. He eventually started swinging a broken broom handle, hoping to scare them off and give himself time to slip over the building’s edge and out of the birds’ sight.

    “I’d been doing it all day, fending them off,” he said. “It was working until I made my last drop . . . When I swung I wasn’t aiming. I didn’t mean to hit it. It flew right into the broom stick. I knew it was dead.” 

    Office workers witnessing the 3:30 p.m. strike called the MSPCA, which responded with one of the agency’s 11 police officers. 

    “I don’t blame them at all for calling,” Guay said. “If I saw someone on the roof swinging at a bird I’d do the exact same thing.”

    But he said he does have a problem with the by-the-book MSPCA cop.

    “He wasn’t buying my story at all,” Guay said. “He didn’t listen to a word I said. He said to me ‘So you like killing birds?’ Am I supposed to stand there and let the gull whack me in the head? I had to do something.” "

 ...it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...

[The Wealthy Congressman] "The police said his eyes appeared watery and his speech slurred. He was not given a sobriety test and was driven home by the police, leading to complaints of special treatment."

[The Poor Window Washer] " “The (Boston) cops in the transport told me, ‘This is ridiculous. We didn’t want to take you in, but the MSPCA cop made the call,’ ” Guay said of his brief chat with Boston officers while shackled in the back of a prisoner-transport truck.

... we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...

[The Wealthy Congressman] "Last week, back from a monthlong treatment program for drug dependency at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, he said he looked forward to resuming his duties, but would need a support group to deal with his bipolar disorder and tendency toward addiction."

[The Poor Window Washer] "The beleaguered window washer arrested for killing a gull that he said tormented him for hours atop a downtown high rise got his first bit of good news since the bird fell dead. He landed another job. "

   - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

[The Wealthy Congressman] "He was accompanied in court by Representative Jim Ramstad, a Republican from Minnesota whom Kennedy identified as his sponsor. Ramstad described himself as a recovering alcoholic of 25 years, having experienced his own "similar wake-up call" in July 1981."

"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."

Mark Twain