Insert Godfather II line about thinking you're out and being pulled back in here.
Well, the blog hiatus of "a few weeks" I vowed to take in the wake of GWBWYPGN?!'s do-not-resucitate order turned out to be more like "a week," and I've started a new blog, Hey Jenny Slater, whose aim is to be less political, yet every bit as annoying, as this one. Turn your browsers, blogroll links, and NetNanny do-not-let-my-child-within-ten-miles-of-this-site blacklists to:
Hope this'll keep you chowderheads entertained for a little while. Oh, and first person to correctly identify where the name comes from gets a free gift bag of Hey Jenny Slater merchandise whenever we start commissioning it. Which, in all honesty, will probably not ever happen.
But anyway. Hope to see y'all 'round the bend . . .
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:18 AM
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Things to do in Denver now that GWBWYPGN?! is dead
While GWBWYPGN?! decomposes beneath the rich earth of the blogosphere, waiting to emerge reborn, Phoenix-like, as something mercifully and completely different, here are some suggestions as to other blogs you could check out, ones that I read (more or less) every single day. I've already mentioned Atrios and Pandagon, and here are some more -- think of these as the blogs you should've been reading while you were wasting your time with this one, and now that you're not wasting your time with this one, you've got no excuse not to read them instead and atone:
First, TBOGG, a Platinum-Level Supporter of Operation F$#! You, Ann Coulter (remember that?) and maybe the funniest political blog on the Web. GWBWYPGN?!, on its best day, was never as funny as TBOGG is when he's not even trying, and GWBWYPGN?!'s replacement (whatever it ends up being) probably won't be either. Just to give you fair warning.
I also have to give props to Mary at Naked Furniture, who was maybe the very first blogger to link to GWBWYPGN?!; I remember looking in my referral log way back in the fall of '03 or whenever it was, finding Naked Furniture in there and thinking, "Holy shit, some totally random person I've never even met thought this blog was worth linking to! Poor girl, she must be stuck in northern Saskatchewan or someplace where her only choices for entertainment are intramural curling or using an Internet connection on a computer that has frozen up on this blog and cannot be directed anyplace else!" As it turns out, that guess was wrong; at the time, Mary was a student at Notre Dame with a life and everything, and even though her Internet browser did go to other sites besides this one, she chose to come here on her own. She is now a law student at Indiana, and still does, in addition to still being very funny, very angry, and very potty-mouthed. All of which are, as Paris Hilton would say, hot.
I think it was also Mary who was responsible for cluing me in to Basket Full of Puppies, another milestone in my blogging "career." (Did everyone make finger quotes around that last word even as I said it? If you didn't I'll give you some time to catch up . . . ready? OK, good.) If you want to get a glimpse of what I'm kind of hoping my next blog will be more like, pay a visit to Matt Lavine; he comments on all kinds of stuff from politics to TV shows to chess and manages to make it funny without using epithets like "f$#!bag" or "ass gopher" every other word, a talent which, at the time of its passing, GWBWYPGN?! had still clearly not mastered. In other words, he's way smarter than me, and the fact that there is a blog anywhere in the world that doesn't link to his is a travesty. Know how every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings? Well, every time a blogger doesn't link to BFoP, an angel gets a cold sore. One of the highest compliments I can pay Matt is that he sounds like the kind of guy I wish my sister would end up with, instead of the ass gophers she currently gravitates toward. OK, see, dammit, I did it again!
Speaking of baby sis, if you haven't gone over and checked out her blog, Practically Harmless, you are not only missing out on (yet another) person who's smarter than me, you're also committing what I consider a personal affront against a member of my immediate family. And nobody f$#!s with the Gilletts, OK? Ann's politics are almost as liberal as mine, only she talks about it gooder than me does. And maybe if more people go over there on a regular basis the Catholic guilt will kick in and she'll be forced to post more.
Finally we have another frequent GWBWYPGN?! linkee, Sadly, No!. Sadly wades through more brain-dead right-wing commentary than any thinking human being should have to in order to cull from it the very best in (mostly unintentional) entertainment -- S,N! was the one who first turned me on to the wanting-so-badly-to-be-hip-but-falling-so-humiliatingly-short-of-the-mark fundie Christian musings of Doug Giles, for instance, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. S,N! is so funny that even its commenters could usually wipe the floor with this blog, humor-wise.
So go check those out, add them to your Favorites even, and I'll be back before you know it with a new blog, a new angle, and a new attitude . . . the last of which will last probably all of five minutes before I regress back into the same bilious, antisocial dillwad I've always been.
No no, I'll show myself out.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:57 PM
Monday, February 28, 2005
Going limp
My friend Brian is the guy who gets the credit (or, if you prefer, the blame) for getting me involved in politics way back in the fall of 2003 when he was one of the very first people to hop aboard the Wes Clark train in Alabama and I was just some schmuck he ran into on the street, holding an armful of flyers to slip under windshield wipers and annoy the crap out of the folks who'd parked at the downtown Sheraton for Bush's $2,000-a-plate campaign suckfest luncheon. Because Brian's a former Green Beret and I'm just a scrawny white kid who never came any closer to being in a fight than yelling at some Tech dorks after the Georgia-Georgia Tech game one year, I see myself as kind of being his sidekick sometimes, and we have this joke about how if we ever end up getting in a fight with somebody, he'll be the one to kick their asses and I'll be the one to stand over their broken, bloody bodies and go "YEEEAHHH!" (think Chris Tucker in "Friday"). That's pretty much the only task I think I'd be suited for in an actual fistfight.
In a political fight, though, I'm not content to be that guy, and the problem is that's what I feel like I've been lately. In my current distracted, busied-up state, the only blogging I've had the energy or the inclination to do is to 1) take some Atrios or Pandagon post about the latest Bush f$#!up/scandal/outrage and 2) say, "Yeah, this really sucks!" 1) is because the mainstream media is too lame and/or lazy to cover any of this stuff which means those are the sources I get it from to begin with, and 2) is because I can't really say anything more about it than what they already have, more succinctly and eloquently at that.
Every once in a while these days I'll muster the strength to come up with an original comment or line of thinking about how this, that or the other is a reason the entire Bush administration should be turned out on its ear, but it seems like I've been coming up with fewer and fewer of those these days. Maybe it's just blog fatigue, maybe it's the realization that Bush is a lame duck and all this is really just counting down the days until his second term ends and his ass vacates the Oval Office for good. But whatever the reason, y'all deserve better than a blog that doesn't do much of anything other than linking to better blogs like Atrios or Pandagon, if for no other reason than because if you're smart you're devouring them already (and if not, what the eff is wrong with you?).
So I've made the decision that I'm going to be hanging up the mouse here at GWBWYPGN?!. I apologize if that comes as a shock to anyone, and certainly if it comes as a disappointment, but I really think it's for the best. Now, I'm not doing this because I've suddenly had an end-of-1984 I-love-Big-Brother moment or, conversely, because I've decided that the Bush administration is too huge and all-powerful for anything to be done about it. Mainly, I've just come to the realization that there are tons of better blogs out there who continue to maintain the fire in their bellies and are worth reading, and as for this one, I think it's better to quit while things are still reasonably interesting and fresh (um, I hope) rather than ruining its rep by waiting until it sucks to give it a merciful, richly deserved execution. (Kind of like they were smart enough to do with "Seinfeld," even if its last episode was a g?ddamn clip show.)
I know this course of action may seem kind of drastic, but I think the rationale can best be summed up in a column written by former GWBWYPGN?! guest blogger Stanley Holditch called "Go Limp." In it, Stanley talks about how screwed-up and ridiculous the state of public affairs in this country has become, and how commenting on it or trying to make fun of it is almost superfluous:
So what can a writer do in this situation? It is impossible to tackle the major issues because they are so ill-founded, illogical and fanciful that discussing them in serious terms is insulting to everyone's intelligence, or at least should be. You simply can't have a reasonable discussion on whether the use of torture is acceptable, any more than you can debate the merits of beating up old ladies for fun. You simply know it's wrong, and if you don't, then there's really no explaining why. Truly realizing this takes years of trying to reason with people in the grips of fear, whether it be fear of a mushroom cloud or a gay sponge. Eventually one realizes that the same degree of success could be had convincing a rabid dog not to bite you. Reason never really enters the picture. Furthermore, by the same token, the horrific changes taking place in our country seem so momentous and important that writing about anything else just seems like fluff. In that respect Haden does have a point: if one feels any ownership of this country, it is getting harder and harder to laugh at all these priceless comedic gems.
The best advice on how to deal with all this was first articulated by Otto when told by the Springfield children that the careening school bus didn't have seatbelts: "Well, just try and go limp." It's best not waste one's breath trying to preach principles of the enlightenment and modern thought when it is plainly obvious these ideas enjoy neither interest nor welcome.
Stanley may be overstating things a bit, but basically, he's right. Right now we have a prominent preacher warning the country that SpongeBob SqaurePants is a flaming 'mo, a presidential press office that welcomed a gay prostitute into its press corps to be their designated softball pitcher, and an attorney general who has burned the midnight oil trying to come up with reasons why attaching electrodes to an Iraqi prisoner's schlong might actually be OK in the eyes of God. If you don't already see how outrageously ridiculous or ridiculously outrageous all of this is, what in the world could I possibly say that would convince you? The thing is, I'm still naive enough to have faith that somewhere someone might have the ability to do that convincing, but at this particular point in time, with this blog, I'm not that guy. Maybe I will be down the road, but until then, I'm just preaching to the choir -- and not only do I have better things to do than choir-preach, y'all have better things to do than be preached to.
So GWBWYPGN?! is, as Otto suggested, going limp. I hate to be a quitter, and I really do ask for your forgiveness if that's what this looks like. But -- and I know I'm putting on some tremendous airs by even suggesting that this is important, but here it is anyway -- I'm not going to be disappearing entirely. I think what I need to do now is take an official Siesta de Blog for a few weeks, concentrate on some non-cyberspace writing projects I've been working on, and then come back later on with a different blog and a different purpose. I've still got fish to fry, but they're not all political. I want to do stuff about popular culture, sports, chicks (naturally), life in general -- mine and other people's; GWBWYPGN?! had some fun with itself, sure, but mostly it didn't really feel like the proper venue for that. But I'm already making plans for a blog that (hopefully) will be.
When that blog does rear its ugly head for the first time, notice will be posted here. The new blog will still contain political comment to some extent, just not all the time; man cannot live on politics alone, particularly these days, for he'll end up with a severe case of the runs.
Anyway. Those of you who were faithful readers, thanks for being faithful; those who brought up interesting, trenchant insights I hadn't thought of, thanks for being smarter than me; those of you who came by just long enough to tell me how much I sucked and how George W. Bush is the awesomest most bestest preznit in the history of the world ever, thanks for making me really happy I decided not to take the Kerry/Edwards sticker off my car. Hope all of y'all will bear with me and check out (and link to? pretty please?) the new blog, whose stupidity and/or suckage will be kept to the bare minimum, when it goes up.
But this is where GWBWYPGN?!, as you know it, goes limp. Peace out . . .
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 2:09 PM
Monday, February 21, 2005
Dammit, Bill, fight like a man!
Well, as excited as we were at first to welcome Bill O'Reilly as the new target of our weekly snarking, Billy boy isn't exactly holding up his end of the deal. His column this week is basically decrying the death of an infant by abuse in Atlanta several years ago and the fact that her mother was never prosecuted (and, in fact, had several more children). Though Bill implies that the black Fulton County DA didn't prosecute because the girl's mom was black, and assails "race hustlers" like Jesse Jackson for not speaking out about the tragedy, he stops short of saying liberals are responsible for it, which makes him at the very least smarter than Newt Gingrich.
Anyway, we'd never dream of ripping into any man who'd take a stand as brave as Child Abuse Is Bad, so the first episode of Assface the Nation with Bill O'Reilly is still sitting on the taxiway awaiting clearance for takeoff. But the point is that our probationary period for ol' Bill has not gotten off to a good start, and if he's not going to man up and say something more along the lines of the blatant, intelligence-free partisanship we've come to know and love from him, we're just not going to bother with the old bastard. That's the heads-up; should Bill's probationary status rise or fall in any way in the coming week, we'll be sure to holler . . .
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:16 PM
The term we're looking for is "non sequitur," which is French for "one thing not having a fricking thing to do with the other"
You may have heard that the pro-Social-Security-privatization lobby has hired a group of consultants to help get the Bush plan passed. These particular consultants are somewhat sought-after in conservative circles, you see, because they also advised the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth* in their scurrilous efforts to smear John Kerry last year. The cockeyed optimist in you who always wants to believe in the best in people might want to believe that their ethics and tactics have improved since the Swiftee days, but . . . well, you'd be wrong and/or stupid.
What you see below, f'rinstance, is an example of an ad they're using to demonize the AARP, which has come out against the privatization plan:
Yes, because they oppose Social Security privatization, the AARP hates our troops and wants to marry off gay people. The sad thing is, this isn't the least bit out of the mainstream as far as current conservative thinking goes. We've already heard a Republican Congressman tell us that victory for Bush's privatization agenda is vitally necessary for our national security, while another one said defending straight marriage was too. So if you believe both of these things, it is conceivable that you could piece together a string of causation that conclusively proves the anti-privatization AARP is trying to destroy marriage and undermine our troops.
But anyway. Just thought you'd be interested to know what's going on in ConservaWorld, where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the fabric of reality is rent in twain on a daily basis . . .
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 8:04 PM
To paraphrase Paul Hogan, "You call that a mandate? This is a mandate"
"Americans want Democrats to stand up to Bush," the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire reports. "Fully 60%, including one-fourth of Republicans, say Democrats in Congress should make sure Bush and his party 'don't go too far.' Just 34% want Democrats to 'work in a bipartisan way' to help pass the president's priorities."
Make sure you read that part that says including one-fourth of Republicans. Even those on the right side of the aisle are beginning to realize that Georgie Boy is not exactly the uber-conservative they thought they had elected. Where he promised prudent, manageable foreign policy, he's either invaded or otherwise pissed off everyone he can think of; where he promised a government that stays out of people's lives, he's passed the Patriot Act and sat idly by as his supporters push for invasive social legislation; where he promised dramatic cuts in spending, he's annihilated the budget surplus and spent more money than anyone since Reagan. Whatever that is, it ain't conservative, and evidently some actual conservatives have figured that out.
With any luck, this little tidbit might serve to remind some fainthearted blue-dog Democrats on the Hill that their job is not to be rubber stamps for the president. Their job is to represent their constituents and make the decisions that are smart for the country. And if Bush isn't doing it, they've got to.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:25 AM
WASHINGTON — The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist.
The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.
There's more in the story about how the government's position actually flies in the face of the Geneva Convention -- it contains a clause signed by the U.S. to never "absolve" a country for "any liability" for POW torture -- but pfffft, like this administration gives one-tenth of a rat's ass about the Geneva Convention.
The story did, however, remind us of the phrase Scotty McClellan repeated about 500 times the last time someone bothered to grill him about this at a press briefing (and we're guessing the griller wasn't Jim Guckert) -- "No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of this very brutal regime and at the hands of Saddam Hussein." So their "solution" is to literally give the ex-POWs no amount of money. At least this is one instance in which Bush isn't saying one thing and then doing precisely the opposite; maybe that'll comfort the POWs somewhat.
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 6:51 PM
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
The people have spoken . . .
. . . and while they still want their idiotic conservative punditry to come with a Y chromosome, they no longer want that chromosome to belong to Ann Coulter. So Ann Coulter is a Lousy Writer and She Isn't Even That Hot has been placed on indefinite hiatus, to be replaced on the GWBWYPGN?! schedule by our new Sunday-morning talk show, Assface the Nation with Bill O'Reilly.
Yup, Bill O'Reilly -- Fox News icon, falafel enthusiast, and unintentional clown prince of conservative blowhardery -- is the duly elected new right-wing target for GWBWYPGN?!'s weekly pundit-snarking. Welcome, Bill, and congratulations to all who voted. We can only hope this will begin a long and fruitful relationship (and by "relationship" we mean "period of us ripping him multiple new ones"). From the looks of Bill O's latest syndicated column, which continues to promulgate the theory that Hillary has to destroy Howard Dean as DNC chair so that her liberal New York-based Wehrmacht can begin its takeover of the United States in 2008 or something, there's every reason to believe it will.
However. It's important to remember that, while Bill O does indeed lean to the conservative and Bush-is-God sides of their respective spectrums, he's not the same kind of knee-jerk Bush fellater that Der Coultinator was. Yes, Bill loves the Dubya, but he doesn't think the sun shines out of Bush's ass -- he thinks the sun shines out of his own ass, which could potentially problem. Despite the title of his best-selling book, the only person Bill O'Reilly is looking out for is Bill O'Reilly. So while he may be locked in the GOP's thrall right now, his rank opportunism decrees that the minute the GOP starts to fall out of widespread favor, he'll be writing columns about how they're running the country into the ground and Bush broke his promise to do this, that, or the other.
For that reason, Bill O is, for the time being, in a probationary period as the target of our weekly ridicule. And if he looks like he's about to go soft, turn on his right-wing puppeteers, or do something that otherwise makes some sort of sense, we'll drop him like a bad habit and go in search of a new target. (We're thinking we'd do it reality-show style, like "The Bachelorette" or something.)
But anyway. Now is not the time to harp on such things. For now, we're going to settle in with Bill and give him every bit the humiliation he deserves. Keep your eyes peeled this weekend for the series premiere of Assface the Nation with Bill O'Reilly, brought to you by Microsoft, Archer Daniels Midland and the letter Q! Payce!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 1:58 PM
Friday, February 11, 2005
But, see, he was writing about the al-Qida network. He didn't say anything about the al-Qaeda network!
Don't call our new secretary of state a liar. Because she's African-American, that automatically makes you a racist. Instead, just say she's somewhat truth-impaired:
EIGHT months before the September 11 attacks the White House's then counterterrorism adviser urged then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to hold a high-level meeting on the al-Qaeda network, according to a memo made public today.
"We urgently need such a principals-level review on the al-Qaeda network," ... Richard Clarke wrote in the January 25, 2001 memo.
Mr Clarke, who left the White House in 2003, made headlines in the heat of the US presidential campaign ... when he accused the Bush White House of having ignored al-Qaeda's threats before September 11.
Mr Clarke testified before inquiry panels and in a book that Rice ... had been warned of the threat.
So, just to review:
> Condoleezza Rice believed a briefing titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike In U.S." wasn't actually a warning that a terrorist strike was soon to happen.
> Condoleezza Rice believed a memo containing the words "We urgently need such a Principals-level review on the al Qida network" did not count as "turn[ing] over to the new administration" the al-Qaeda threat.
But we've got her as our top diplomat anyway. Aren't we lucky!
# Once again back is the incredible Doug at 7:32 AM
