In all, this elaborate sideshow we still call an election isn’t an election at all; it’s an auction, and the cheapness of the bids ought to offend us all.  Lobbyists and Hedge Fund managers at least coughed up bribes, er, bids of at least a million, since that’s what they spend on, say, shirt laundry, but when you get to the banksters, America looks like a four dollar tart.  Really, Goldman Sachs, you’re only coughing up $496,430 to save America from European-style socialism?  Couldn’t you have at least rounded it up?  And JPMorgan Chase only stuffed $317,400 into Mitt’s magic underwear, undoubtedly in crumpled singles.  That’s about what they make on fraudulent overdraft charges in about eight minutes; and yet that’s all they have to spare to oust that commie who once called them (oooh…) fat cats?  Why do they think buying a President is so cheap?

The wrinkle in this, which I don’t think the activist judges on the Supreme Court thought through as they planned to fulfill Karl Rove’s “Permanent Republican Majority” dream with their errant Citizens United decision, is obvious.  Republican voter totals in Florida were down from 2008, in the double digits.  Could that be the result of a merciless barrage of annoying, repetitive, and sneaky commercials, 13,000 of them?  Before the money tide rolled in, Republicans across the country were much more enthusiastic about voting than understandably dispirited Democrats.  After being doused for weeks in plutocrat-funded sewage, many must have decided they needed to shower on election day.

More interestingly, the attacks were directed at someone most everyone despises, Newt Gingrich.  Thus, though the ad onslaught must certainly have been annoying, it wouldn’t have beeen offensive to most people, particularly those elusive “Independents” needed in the general election.  It will be a little different when the gold-plated fire hoses are aimed at President Obama, who maintains high personal approval, even though both right and left agree he’s been a big disappointment.  Thinking people know Obama isn’t a European socialist intent on destroying capitalism, quite the opposite, and are likely to find attempts to smear him as such both offensive and dumb.  Best of all, Romney has nothing positive at all to say about himself that ordinary voters want to hear, not even 4% worth, so he’ll have to go on lying, flip-flopping, and bumbling while hoping some of his very expensive mud sticks.  Money can buy a lot of things, but love clearly isn’t among them.

Romney seems okay with that, but history might disagree.  Republicans (and the great majority of the media) loved Bush, and simply adored Reagan.  This undeserved and mostly unreciprocated adulation not only buffered them from criticism once in office, but more importantly, it got them there, and the same is true of Obama.  As I’ve said before, and it becomes more obvious each day, no one not named Romney loves Romney, or will admit it if they do.  The cheapness of the donors is, ironically, reflected in the listlessness of the voters.  On paper, Romney is the perfect candidate: looks, money, family, money, business experience, money, and money.  In real life, the paper turns out to be cardboard.

It’s too soon to tell whether Occupy Wall Street’s drive to appropriate public spaces will entirely obscure its protests of economic injustice, but the dangers of its morphing into an ineffectual Occupy Whatever movement are already evident. Occupation is more exhilarating and instantly gratifying than the hard slog of advancing political and social change, and so far, one of the movement’s primary achievements has been a remarkable judicial ruling implying a new First Amendment right of occupation.

“New?”  As usual, it’s those “activist judges” again.  Everyone knows that free speech is only for those who can pay for it.  That’s what  Jesus told the Founders, and those lazy hippies should just shut up and get jobs, so they can buy their own politicians, presumably.

What if a group of Christian nationalists set up camp in a public park and excluded all non-Christians from their encampment in order to demonstrate the possibility of a purified Christian America? What if they purposefully chose a park across the street from a mosque or synagogue, claiming that the location was essential to their message? What if a group of White Supremacists set up a tent city in a public space that admitted only white people?

Evidently Wendy hasn’t been told that Christian crazies have been “occupying” abortion clinics, for instance, non-stop for decades, often to the point of violence,  all white militias are forming heavily armed “communities” all over the country, and many elected Republicans routinely call for all kinds of discrimination against Muslims.  I guess she hopes her readers haven’t noticed these things, either.

If you believe that rights enjoyed by Occupy Boston should not be extended to the Christian nationalists and White Supremacists, among other private groups that discriminate based on race, religion, or other protected categories, then you’re endorsing content-based discrimination against speech — a fundamental violation of First Amendment freedoms. If the right to disseminate a particular message is contingent on popular or official approval of its content, then it’s not a right at all. It’s an unreliable, arbitrary privilege. Occupy Wall Street and its satellites are supposed to represent the interests of the unprivileged many; they should perhaps refrain from demanding occupational “rights” that can only be extended to a privileged few.

The fact that no one at OWS, or anyone outside the right wing noise machine is actually making any such argument, of course, is immaterial, since the point is they might.  And, that thing they haven’t done makes them not just hypocrites, but, get this, “privileged” ones; the few against the many.  If this is the best they can come up with, OWS has already won.

No tendentious description of the phenomenon is required, nor is a detailed and boring historical context necessary, since they (like the poor) “have always been with us.”   But the sudden “surge” of poseurs, fakers, demagogues, deadbeats, and crooks stands out right now, as our vaunted world economy teeter-totters, and institutions – from colleges to banks to temples of journalism, and pinnacles of power – croak under the strain.

Here’s a partial list, culled from today’s headlines, of new and emerging Little Men.  Please feel free to add a name which may have been missed in this initial installment.  Step right up!  There’s room for everyone, and probably no end to it, once the battle has been joined.

Herewith:  The Little Men Of The Moment!

Silvio Berlusconi - the blessedly former prime minister of Italy.  The ultimate Mistero Buffo of Italian politics pledged to resign (and by God he did!) if a new, technocratic government now in formation can begin cobbling together a fiscal plan to prevent massive default by Italy, a member state in the Eurozone.  But like the magician/clown he is, some skeptical Burlesquecrony-watchers are wondering if this world-class fraudster and cockmaster will ever leave the stage (and, by God! – he hinted upon departing he might continue lurking behind the arras, in Milan).  What is not in dispute is Berlusconi has diddled and fiddled within his court of  whores and bunga bunga hangers-on, while failing, over twenty years, to do the job he was elected to do, so that Italy – more than Greece, Portugal, Spain, or Ireland – may truly sink the European “common market,” and possibly, the world economy itself.  Basta!

Joe Paterno – the disgraced former head football coach of Penn State.  Whereas Berlusconi was not a great man, Paterno might have been, to the extent he fashioned a winning, and honorable, sports tradition.  He did win a lot of football games; ya gotta give him that!  Brought truckloads of money to Beaver Stadium too!  His teams won, or contended for, quite a few national championships.  And he did, judging by the loyalty of the Penn State community, demand and get excellence from his players, on and off the field, for over two generations.  Some of them actually read books; most graduated.  He did not, sadly, measure up when faced with an unavoidable moral dilemma.  He has experienced a great fall.  His catharsis, and that of Penn State, awaits.

Jon Corzine – resigned CEO of MF Global, former Democratic governor and senator from New Jersey, former Goldman Sachs honcho.  Corzine took a mere year and a half or so to capsize MF Global, which traced its lineage to the sugar trade in late 18th century England.  Corzine bet on sovereign debt and lost.  Big.  MF Global under Corzine, a darling of Democratic big wigs, reported a nearly $192  million quarterly loss after betting on European government bonds.  At the end of October the company’s credit rating went to junk, and it filed for Chapter 11.  About a thousand Wall Street wizards went out on the dole.  Just like that.  MF Global’s demise has been logged in as the 8th largest bankruptcy in American history.  Corzine, a little man posting big losses, appears to have a few little Democratic Party leaders around him, saying:  “sssshhhh.”

Bill O’Reilly – reigning Fox News gasbag.  O’Reilly, a little twit with global reach, has been enjoying a two months-long perch on the New York Times bestseller list with a book he “wrote” on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  However, the “no spin” king’s tome has been banned from the shelves of the Ford’s Theater book store, operated by the National Park service.  Ford’s Theater was where Lincoln was shot by the mad thespian, John Wilkes Booth.  Among numerous errors cited in the book, O’Reilly asserts there was an Oval Office in Lincoln’s White House, when in fact the executive suite was not built until 1909, when, presumably, there was a federal budget surplus.  In another egregious error, O’Reilly for some reason had Honest Abe “furling” his brow sometime before he was shot (he might have been furling about the feckless Gen. McClellan).  Everyone knows a man would “furrow” his brow, not furl the damn thing, whatever the situation, right?  This flap from Ford’s Theater appears to be a collection of minor quibbles to the author.  O’Reilly’s publisher says the little man is working on another quickie about presidents, to be written in a “narrative, novelistic fashion.”  O’Reilly responded to the Ford’s Theater critique by saying, “Enemies are trying to hurt my book.”

Rick Perry - governor of Texas and Republican presidential candidate.  Perry doesn’t know which federal departments he wants to shut down, but he does know he wants American foreign aid under his administration to start with no money.  Way to go, little man!  Perry may seem drunk at debates he’s appeared in, but it’s just the best a little man from Texas can do.  What can you expect from a guy who used Whiteout on a rock at the entrance to his family’s vacation retreat, but can’t remember why exactly?  Also, such a little man should be cut some slack if he thinks real, light amber New England maple syrup might work as a companion to barbecue sauce!

Michael Bloomberg - mayor of New York.  Well now he’s done it!  There’s a lot of talk in the city about how bored Bloomberg is with his job; and a guy I know who was hanging around Zuccotti Park on Tuesday morning while the cops were mopping up says simply that Bloomie will run for prez as an indie and pull close to 20 percent, drawing the indie vote,  while cutting into Obama’s hide.  Result:  one crazy Republican president, unless it’s Willard the flip-flopper.  Maybe Bloomie will turn out to be a little big man.

Karl Rove – formerly Bush’s brain.  During an appearance at Johns Hopkins recently, Rove, evidently exasperated by taunts from OWS protestors and other unsavory characters, actually challenged one (or all) of them to a fight.  This does not compute.  It’s just hard to imagine this dweeby little man stepping up to his own challenge.  Bombast knows no bounds.

Rush Limbaugh – radio bombasterbasta! – par excellence.  This week the little man of the airwaves used every slur in the book to denigrate the OWS protesters, particularly those evicted from Zuccotti Park, since Tuesday was not a slow news day, and therefore an opportunity for el Rushbo to spike his sagging rating a tad.  Limbaugh spent minute after minute on one of his shows this week obsessing about the OWSers’ tendencies to spew precious bodily fluids all over public spaces across America’s fruited plain, just to call attention to their sad state, which to dittoheads means they’ll have to move back home with Mom & Dad when it’s all over – as a spent force.  Only a man with a little whatnot could stoop to that.

Well, there you have it!  But there are many other candidates to be nominated, to say nothing of the untold millions of Honorable Mentions, past and present.  Step right up.  Tell the nation who you’d like to see on the Pedestal of Heroes in this category.

Now, I’ve never been a fan of Fox News’ Megyn Kelly; she set the standard for right wing attack Barbie that has infected all of Fox and most of the rest of the media.  Prettier than Ann Coulter, smarter than Gretchen Carlson (by a country mile…), and less grating than lesser lights like Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham, Kelly struck me as the most sinister of them all, until here lately.  Maybe it was motherhood; her most recent attack on righty classlessness and cruelty was a searing rebuttal of some sexist stupid remarks made by Bernie Goldberg about maternity leave.  As righties are reliably wont to do, ol’ Megyn suddenly got to rather like a hated liberal idea when it happened to directly benefit her.  As self-serving as her epiphany may have been, though, seeing her take down Goldberg with tapes of his own words and shame him, repeatedly, for saying them was undoubtedly the best thing I’ve seen out of Fox since Jeremy Glick slaughtered Bill O’Reilly years ago.  But she wasn’t just slapping a perceived critic around for personal revenge as they usually do on Fox; she came out not only forcefully defending and explaining the hated Bill Clinton’s Family Medical Leave Act, but even adding how stingy it was, because every other civilized country provides paid leave for new parents, as does that commie outfit she works for.   It was the first positive thing anyone has said about France on Fox since 2002.  I naturally assumed she’d promptly get a formal warning and cut this sort of thing out.

But she didn’t, as the above quote* shows.  She went after the aptly named Ablow with every tool ordinarily left out of the Fox toolbox, except the vitriol.  Facts.  Science.  Experts.  What’s the world coming to?  Better yet, she did so defending Chaz Bono’s appearance on “Dancing With the Stars,” affirming that transgendered people, who rank several ranks higher on Fox News’ Hate List than, say, regular gays, Mexican drug lords, and Al Gore, are human, too.  Rather than opining on Fox, she could have been speaking at, well, at least a Log Cabin Republican event; she spoke forcefully against hate, even.  Call me crazy, but I think this sort of thing is going to go over like a fart in church with the “folks,” given how Fox is America’s 24-Hour Hate Channel, when Megyn Kelly starts acting like hate is a bad thing.  It’s ruinous to the brand.

I’m guessing that pretty soon she’ll find herself caring about the unemployed, too.

*Sorry, I couldn’t get the video to embed; I hope my computer isn’t in its final throes….

“Comcast has not closed the transaction for NBC Universal and has no operational control at any of its properties, including MSNBC…  We pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not interfere with NBC Universal’s news operations. We have not & we will not.”

(Statement hurriedly released by Comcast after they canned Keith Olbermann, their highest-rated host, Friday)

Well, that didn’t take long.  You might recognize that last part (in bold) from Iran/Contra; then as now it means, roughly, “Yeah, so what?  We won’t admit it next time, either.”  Reagan, having Alzheimer’s and all, might be forgiven for such a plain falsehood, but the sleazy pols and sleazier corporations who have trotted out this curiously constructed denial ever since know exactly what they’re doing.  Name the heinous or corrupt act committed, be it torture, spying on citizens, or what have you, and the have not/will not couplet, repeated endlessly, generally tides one over until Fox et al can come in and carpet-bomb the area with lies and and pearl-clutching in equal measure.  Don’t try this at home, though, unless you’re a powerful politician or a corporation who owns some; like polo or yachting, this isn’t a sport for the huddled masses.

The most sinister thing about MSNBC’s decision to dump Olbermann halfway through a $30 million four-year contract is that it is such a bad business decision; Olbermann’s intensely loyal fans, who essentially made MSNBC the network that beat CNN and is making gains on FOX,  have made their voices heard before, and they are, after all, MSNBC’s audience.  It’s hard to imagine Fox firing, say, Bill O’Reilly, with no real plan to replace him with anyone of similar stature in the time slot, and thus potentially losing ratings ground and viewer loyalty in the process.  But it’s also hard to imagine Bill O’Reilly ever doing anything to annoy his monopolistic overlords, much less going out quietly.

Comcast knows as well as anyone that having a liberal or two on the air, if it can dig your network out of the ratings basement, isn’t such a bad thing, but not good enough to hang onto when it annoys the plutocrats.  Better to have a gaffe-ridden Bozo like Chris Matthews or an insidery cipher like Lawrence O’Donnell…  In the unlikely event that they stray from the reservation, they can be easily brought to heel.  Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz provide color and a bit of passion, but neither have been known to leave marks on their targets, and having been made by MSNBC, are unlikely to cross it under new ownership.  Now that Comcast is a full-scale monopoly, vertically integrated and ready to squash the competition in other ways, it no longer cares what the ratings are in its tiny old News division, or what its paying customers want.  ”Whatever the traffic will bear”  and “the public be damned” are the cries of the new plutocracy, just as they were for the old.

The message to the reality-based community couldn’t be clearer, as a loyal Bushie (probably Karl Rove) said in the heady days of 2003, “We’re an empire now, and we create our own reality.”  Keith Olbermann provided an antidote to that barrage of lie-filled propaganda in those dark days, virtually alone in TV News, and he had the advantage of being right, to boot.  That sort of thing just isn’t done anymore; as the otherwise inexplicably still-employed David Gregory would be happy to explain to you, “That’s not our role.”  Comcast just reminded us of that, however sneakily, and I expect more reminders in the days and weeks ahead.

The ball got rolling back when Reagan’s FCC Chairman said, “A television is just a toaster with pictures.”  And now, Keith Olbermann, and with him, MSNBC, is the toast.  It was nice while it lasted.

To no one’s surprise, Holy Joe Lieberman’s “Joementum”  has turned out, once and for all, to be a wet firecracker; the universally despised “Independent” has, somewhat belatedly, decided to pull the curtain on his embarrassing “career,” by, naturally, leaking the news of his retirement while denying it.  Of course, few of his constituents will miss him, but Fox News will, and so will I, but for the same selfish reasons that have nothing to do with being a Patriotic American.  What right-wing network could fail to miss a “Democrat” who has come to dedicate his dreary, venal life to vilifying other Democrats, and what lefty blogger wouldn’t shed a drunken tear or two at the thought of losing such an easy (and cartoonish, to boot) target on a slow news day.

As most Hag readers know, I come by my loathing of Joe Lieberman honestly, despite its undeniable advantages; the moment he stepped up to denounce Bill Clinton for his notorious but obviously irrelevant tart problems, he gained a place in my heart as not only the Senate’s Dumbest Democrat, but as the Senate’s Dumbest Politician, which is a considerably higher bar to clear.  The rest of them were all porking their subordinates, too, and therefore understandably wanted to focus, primly, on “the rule of law” and whatnot, but ol’ Holy Joe, with whom no woman, likely including his long-suffering wife, has ever willingly disrobed, chose to focus on the sex thing; just the sheer horror of it all.  He positively gloried in being  Ken Starr’s homelier twin, and we all know how that turned out when it was presented to the American people, nearly all of whom have gotten laid, deservedly, considerably more often than guys like Ken and Joe, and as such see things a bit differently.

But like the party he would soon embrace, the unappealing and schoolmarmish Holy Joe fell improbably upward after the Democratic rout of 1998, and over the years he got to like the treachery thing a little too much for even his own good.  His nomination as Vice President in 2000 probably sealed Al Gore’s political fate, just as surely as Sarah Palin’s sealed John McCain’s eight years later, but neither of these two fatal and tone-deaf choices ever blamed themselves; quite the opposite, to the continuing consternation (and, I might add, diminution) of their disappointed political benefactors.  But Holy Joe wasn’t done.  His heretofore dormant libido having been put in overdrive after making out with George Bush, he decided to go bareback with Dick Cheney and Bill O’Reilly, rather than get thee to the STD clinic like a more responsible whore would, and his infections predictably blossomed.

Soon, he was beaten in the Democratic Primary (thanks in part to donations from your humble correspondent) by political newcomer Ned Lamont, and quickly became the embodiment of everything that was wrong with not just the Democratic Party, but the country at large, by running as an “Independent.”   You see, in today’s world, an “Independent” means that you emphatically embrace the most bonkers and ruinous policies of the Republican Party, especially on war an tax cuts for the rich, but even on things like reproductive rights (of which Joe would know nothing), and Health Care, which, thanks to Joe, includes no public option and is thus, (with a couple of minor exceptions) a typical pile of corporate-vetted crap.  This strategy, in the old days, could make you so rich even Republicans couldn’t beat you, but thanks to his old boyfriend’s court appointments, oops, Citizens United came along, and suddenly there’s many millions of dollars that says ol’ Holy Joe is just a shorter, uglier version of Hugo Chavez.  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Holy Joe has indeed done a lot in his career, but today he has, at long last, finally done something worthwhile.  Quit.  Thanks, Joe.

.

What’s undoubtedly lost on the Fox viewer, of course, is that Dick, personally, did do extremely well by the war and tax policies he embraced and rammed through, even if the rest of America certainly didn’t, so for a change he isn’t lying this time.  In Fox World, anything liberals don’t like is by definition all but Heaven-sent, so even the worst policies, the catastrophic consequences of which still dominate the news today, are treated as great triumphs, niggling things like anemic job growth, stagnant GDP, and unemployment in the Bush era are mere collateral damage in the ongoing war Fox valiantly fights each day.  That’s at least one war Dick can rightly feel he’s won, which is (not coincidentally) the whole point of this supposed “documentary.”   This is Fox, after all, and therefore every story, even the most trifling ones about animals and/or boobs, are always ultimately about the triumph of godly conservatism over perfidious liberalism.  You just fill in new names and datelines, and away you go; evidently  this slapdash formula works just as well when you have months to produce your propaganda, since your well-conditioned audience isn’t exactly, uh, skeptical, except perhaps of Al Gore.

You’d think this would get boring after a while, except for late-stage Alzheimer’s patients, that is, but it apparently never does.  ”The Simpsons,” a rogue planet in the Fox Universe, upped the ante this week by calling the “news” network “unsuitable for viewers under 75,” but count on Bill O’Reilly not to get the joke, since his absurd salary demands it.  Similarly, last week O’Reilly made an utter fool of himself attempting to defend his employer when “The Simpsons”  added a tagline under the Fox News logo, “Not Racist, But #1 With Racists,” even though just a few years ago 50-something Bill described, with genuine surprise, his decidedly un-scary first foray into a predominantly black restaurant, and he routinely defends his obnoxious bigotry and bad behavior by smugly pointing to his ratings.   Bully and authoritarian that he is, he advocated harsh, Murdochian punishment for “Simpsons” creator (and Portland native!) Matt Groening, rather than deigning to address Groening’s completely uncontroversial claim.

Clearly, Fox has long since sailed too far down Fair and Balanced river and is now careening over Don’t Confuse Me With The Facts Falls, to inexorably land in the bottom of Glenn Beck’s Chalkboard Canyon, where it disappears like Wile E. Coyote, in an unheralded and failure-tainted puff of smoke.  And just like Daisy Buchanan, Dick Cheney roars away in his blood-splattered Deusenberg (the Roaring Twenties equivalent of a Hummer), laughing all the way to the bank, while Fox cheers him on.  In more capable hands, this could be quite a “documentary,” indeed; it was a great novel, albeit still unsuitable for readers under 75.

Koppel targeted Fox News and MSNBC, comparing them to bling-addled boxers in the big media ring, glaring at each other from their respective neutral corners, and then raining rhetorical spitballs, as they move, night after night, to the center of the big canvas:  American cable television.

Typically, there’s been a lot of reaction.

Sssssnnnnnnorrrrrrrre !!!

Koppel furrowed mightily about the underlying threat to the Republic if trends (in place and quite profitable for a helluva long time, thanks) continued, led by O’Reilly/Olbermann, Beck/Maher, Limbaugh/Stewart food fights.

BUT !!!!

It may be The Big Media Story is way ahead of Ted and all these other clowns, at least in terms of the dire state of cable itself.

From the Financial Times, 11/18/10:

“The number of people subscribing to US cable television services has suffered its biggest decline in 30 years as younger, tech-savvy viewers lead an exodus to web-based operations, such as Hulu and Netflix.” *

• Total number of subscribers to cable and satellite in the third quarter:  down by 119,000
• Compared to gain of 346,000 in the third quarter of 2009
• Net falloff in subscribers in the third quarter of 2010:  741,000

“The figures suggest that ‘cord-cutting’ – one of the pay-TV industry’s biggest fears – is becoming a reality as viewers drift to web-based platforms.”

• Online subscription services now priced at $7.99 per month (Hulu and Netlfix)
• Hulu’s revenue up over $130 million this year compared to last (Hulu owned jointly by News Corp., Disney, and NBC Universal)

“Research from The Diffusion Group, a technology research company, found that more than a third of iPad users were likely to cancel their pay-TV subscriptions in the next six months.”

* Source:  SNL Kagan

Former President George Bush lying, uncontestedly, to Oprah Winfrey.

Behaving as though he might have a future in the Democratic party, Kanye West today apologized to George Bush for calling him a racist, even though he never did.  Back in 2005 he said, watching the Katrina debacle unfold and the Bush Administration’s shockingly indifferent response, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”  Bush, who received less than ten percent of the black vote (proving that African-Americans are considerably smarter than the white kind), also headed a political operation that deliberately suppressed the black vote in several key states, and ruthlessly attacked, at least rhetorically, all programs for the poor, nonetheless was never called a racist for these things, at least by Kanye West.  Though Bush conspicuously never race-baited the way so many of his Republican colleagues have, and continue to do, the idea that he did not, politically at least, “care about black people,” is just a fact, and West happened to say so.   The thin-skinned and ever-calculating Bush never got over such uppity effrontery, as he made revealingly clear in his unwatched and unwatchable “interview” with NBC’s Matt Lauer touting his new ghost-written “book.”

Facts, of course, have a liberal bias, so Bush had to substitute a plausible lie that turned him from perpetrator to victim, unsurprisingly enough. “He called me a racist,” the still-angry overgrown toddler whined, though he appears today quite hale and hearty compared to the hundreds of (mostly black) Katrina victims who lost their lives, and thousands more who lost their homes and livelihoods.  I don’t believe, nor does West, that Bush is a racist, personally, at least since he met Clarence Thomas.  He is what he is; another puppet for a plutocratic right-wing movement that does what it has to do to fool stupid people into supporting it, and sometimes lots of other people end up on the short end of this Republican stick, whether they be black, gay, Muslim, Mexican, or what have you.  It’s not hate, it’s just politics, and it’s equal opportunity, you know.

What’s depressing about this, which Bush’s petulant grudge-holding and Kanye West’s pathetically abject apology illustrates, is how successful the right has been with separating words from deeds through this now-trite ritual of false victimhood.  In New Orleans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and yes, if only through negligence, New York and Washington, Bush has been responsible for a great deal of death and suffering, but people are supposed to be apologizing to him, because at least they weren’t all darker-hued.  He may have always had an astonishing and well-documented indifference to human suffering in general, but dammit, Karla Faye Tucker was white, and he killed her just the same.  He may be a lot of appalling things, but racist is way down on the list.  Calling someone a racist, in Bush’s eyes, is the real sin, which comes as pretty good news to racists everywhere, as you can imagine.

Bush probably first hit upon this neat trick with lying, and simply branched out when it worked so well.  Throughout his (losing) 2000 campaign, he told a series of flat-out whoppers about everything from tax cuts to climate plans, and when they all proved to be lies, he relied on the fact that members of the media are hesitant to call (Republican) Presidential candidates liars, especially when they’re too busy calling Al Gore just that.  Lying is one thing; calling someone a liar is evidently quite another, at least in the American media, and Bush rode this embarrassingly naive reticence all the way into Iraq and reelection.  Paul Krugman finally broke the ice in 2003, in a hilarious NYT column entitled “Dead Parrot Society” that tallied up the many tortured (no pun intended…) euphemisms for Bush’s serial lying that had recently turned up in the media, and Al Franken’s 2004 book, “Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” with Bush, Cheney, and Bill O’Reilly prominently featured on the cover, felt as though someone opened a window and turned on a fan in a locked roomful of Chili Eating Contest winners.

Sadly, this calling things by their real names movement never much caught on, and Bush as well as his (to this day!) Republican water-carriers learned their lesson all too well.  If calling a famous liar a liar was worse than being one, then certainly calling an admitted war criminal a war criminal was also worse than being one, calling a bloodthirsty Imperialist an Imperialist was worse than being one, calling a complete dumbshit a dumbshit was much worse, because it drips with that hated elitism, than being one, and on and on.  An incentive has thus now been created to behave as dreadfully as possible, thereby to attract the sort of inflammatory epithets one can then handily, and apparently for years afterward, use to tar their opponents as cruel, unhinged slanderers of one’s good name.

The rest of the world, fortunately, doesn’t fall for such inane claptrap about flagrant miscreants;  high officials in Britain and Germany have already responded to the many self-serving lies in Bush’s book by more or less directly calling him a liar, even as courts around the world are finally delving into the many international crimes of his infamous tenure in office.  He, of course, doesn’t care a whit about his horrendous legacy, and has repeatedly said so, even as he so desperately tries to duct-tape it together.  By the time he hits the history books, he blithely tells “interviewers” like Lauer, “I’ll be dead,” while hundreds of thousands of his victims already are.  He needn’t fear the history books; he ought to fear the dictionary, which never lies, unlike him.

Of course, anyone capable of, say, telling time would realize how ridiculous his fears are; if Abdullah and Habib are going to blow up a plane, you can bet they’ll be smart enough to wear Dockers and ball caps, thus slipping by Williams’ eagle eye for terrorists.  Maybe NPR fired you for your jaw-dropping stupidity, Juan…. Ever think of that?  Of course not; it’s something in the air at Fox.  Luckily for Juan, their newly minted Free Speech Hero, Fox has a crack team at human resources who slapped together a $2 million multiyear contract for doing even more of whatever it is he does there before the day was quite over, and were he not so astonishingly dumb, he’d have taken the money and shut up.  (Then again, if he were smart, he wouldn’t have been allowed on Fox, and none of this would have happened in the first place.)

But instead, like Lieberman before him, along with virtually every other loser righty now lavishly employed by Fox, he turned his well-deserved repudiation into a whiny, self-discrediting episode of verbal diarrhea that revealed him to be nothing more than any of the rest of them; he’s already written a “column,” if you want to call it that, that unloads years of resentment at the mean and unacceptably “liberal” NPR, in which he gamely employs his eighth-grade writing skills to prove that NPR’s only offense was in not firing the ungrateful, insubordinate dimwit sooner.

But it’s clear that Williams will be right at home at Fox, where he will be appearing tonight, a few million richer, to cry on Bill O’Reilly’s shoulder about how “political correctness” is ruining everything that is Right About America, and probably recite the Teabagger oath. More power to him; as Fox would say, “I wish him well.”  And I mean it the same way Fox does.