Will Ferrel gets his Shrub on......and the suburb of Southern Pines will never be the same.
As a former 82nd paratrooper, I can only say that 2,000 wild monkeys would probably raise the cumulative GT score of, say, 2nd Brigade by 10%. At least. Fucking Falcon Brigade, like special ed only with more medals.
Testing the new icon...
ReplyDeleteA Sputnik memento? What prompted your new choice?
ReplyDeleteFerrel does Bush better than Bush.
ReplyDeleteactually the plan has some similarities to reported CIA plans for Blackwater in Iraq..... it sounds like that plan entailed a considerable "WTF" factor.....
ReplyDeleteJim: 4 OCT 57 - Two things important happened - Sput and me. Daddy Lawes' Domestic 6 completed her personnel accession mission 52 years ago next weekend. I just liked the little Sputnik ashtray.
ReplyDeleteAnd I loved "Operation Primate Speargun". The difference between that and "Arrowhead Ripper" and the other fatheaded oplan brand names is so small as to be immeasurable. Perfect.
I'd love to see Will Ferrel try to do Obama. He does Bush so well...
ReplyDeleteOn the serious side, the comparison brings up an interesting point, Bush and Obama are both politicans, but which is the better leader? And what's the difference between a good leader and a good politician?
We've seen people (certain military officers, for instance, I won't name any here) who are good leaders and crappy politicians. There are plenty of politicians who are crappy leaders. Is the country better off with a good leader or a good politician at the helm? Or does it take both?
wourm: My reading is that it is nearly impossible for Americans to elect a "leader", in that leading often involves either telling the public things it doesn't want to hear or attempting to deceive it to avoid having to confront it with realities it doesn't want to face.
ReplyDeleteSo the only real distinction is between a politician that plays politics for its own sake - that was Bush (and 99% of the GOP), whose only real purpose was to win elections so as to prevent any sort of interference with the process of raping the public weal for benefits for their cronies, the wealthy, and powerful entities both individual and corporate - and a politician that has some dim remnant notion of public service. That would be Obama, whose tenure is complicated by the reality that the Dems, TOO, have largely mortaged themselves to the wealthy and powerful.
I think the only real solution is to turn 2,000 speargun-wielding wild monkeys loose in the Capitol building, where hopefully they can shoot enough legislators in the face to motivate the others.
And if we could take up E. J. Dionne's eminently reasonable argument to Arm the Senate!, it could happen!
ReplyDeleteLisa, this assumes that a Senator is a more responsible weapons user than 2,000 wild monkeys. Based on experience, I would, sadly, have to disagree.
ReplyDeleteI've never quite gotten the attraction of this guy Farrell. And, not to be a party pooper, I think that while we're yucking it up about a buffoonish president, it doesn't hurt to keep in mind that the president of the US is the most dangerous person on the planet.
ReplyDeleteInstead of laughing at our former president, I'm with Andrew Sullivan in wanting answers to some important questions:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/bush-torture#
We let Bush off far too lightly when we laugh at him. He is an evil, corrupt man. Will he ever man up and admit anything? Hell, no. He's a coward, too. Meanwhile, government apparatchiks work busily to get the goods on GS-12 and 13s, who, although not particularly nice people, likely wouldn't have ever succumbed to their inner demons were it not for the free pass Bush and his henchmen gave them.
Oh, and then there are our dead troops, the dead Iraqis, the dead Afghans, our troops who, although not dead, have had their lives ruined, and the crushing budget deficits that've ruined the financial dreams of millions of Americans.
Gotta tell ya, I'd really party hearty at this man's trial.
Whoops. Try:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/bush-torture
Publius,
ReplyDeleteOh, IMHO Will Ferrell is quite awful, really. (Though he was adequate in Anchorman, in which he played a buffoon much like himself.)
But that's the beauty of his portrayal of Bush -- its adequacy. But what if Bush's buffoonery was a mask?
I do agree that lampooning Bush is not adequate catharsis for the true brutality of the man and his actions. Andrew Sullivan is correct.
The funny here for me was the utter silliness of the whole monkey thing. I have no real opinion one way or the other on Ferrel's Bush. Mocking the idiot seems like...well, mocking an idiot.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that the Sullivan piece is the saddest thing I've read in a long time' it's like hearing a Samoan pleading with the Big Tiki-Tiki to explain why the last typhoon fucked everything up. Is he smoking crack? Who the hell does he think he's talking to? Trying the lying, criminal bastards would be "too divisive"? WTF?
ReplyDeleteIf this is the state of "moderate conservativism" no wonder the fucker is DOA. Christ, the moral incoherence of the massive four page screed is ponderous.
The guy is either a crook or he's not. But pleading with him to fall on his sword "for the good of the country"? Which country has Sullivan been living in for the past 8 years?
FDChief, I'll agree, Ferrel's act is mocking an idiot. What bothers me is that that idiot got elected to the most powerful position in the world. Almost half of the voting population of the US thought he was the better leader. WTF?
ReplyDeleteI see the Sullivan article as an attempt to put down in writing what's going through a lot of people's minds. A lot of people hope (wish?) that the GOP leadership will come to its senses and realize the divisiveness and destructiveness that their current direction is taking them. Fat chance, but it's nicey nicey to see it in writing.
As for 2000 monkeys, isn't that the same as the LA gang scene? A bunch of wild, untrained animals let loose with deadly weapons?
WASF, but I still remain hopeful. Our country has been through dark periods before.
I'm no particular fan of Sullivan's, but I've kind of found his journey from being a hardcore winger to skeptic interesting. If you've followed the guy any, the disillusionment when he learned that his boys were (1) anti-homosexual; and, (2) stupid in their choices of wars was worth the price of admission.
ReplyDeleteNot so sure that Sullivan really expects Bush to respond or do anything about this. I see this as more of a bill of particulars, a "j'accuse" moment more than anything else. It's accordingly valuable to me.
And WRT to the old "trying him would be too divisive," deal, well, there is plenty of support for that line of thinking on the Dem side as well. Starting with the current POTUS. If one's involvement and interest in political affairs goes back to Nixon times (and earlier), one's well aware that it isn't just wingers and imperial presidency proponents that view prosecution of presidential malefactors with alarm.