OK, I realize that 9/11 was supposed to kill irony, I didn't realize it had to kill all understanding of sarcasm and humor.
I watched the Kucinich answer. He was joking. Yes, I saw something I couldn't identify, aka a UFO, and now I'm opening campaign offices in two of the best known sites of UFO lore. It was a sarcastic answer to one of the stupider questions in debate history, a high bar indeed, but that one shattered it.
Of course, I suppose it's not fair to say that it was 9/11 that shattered big media's ability to understand obvious jokes from Democratic candidates.
The whole incident brought me back to 2000 when supposedly intelligent media folks watched Al Gore describe his mother's lullabye, "Look for the Union Label." They didn't laugh and say what a warm and funny moment. Instead they spent a few weeks proving that the song hadn't been written when Al Gore was young enough to have mom sing him lullabyes.
I'm not a Kucinich supporter. He certainly has his issues. But to let an idiot like Chris Matthews use a joke that most 12-year-olds could easily recognize as a joke to slam not only Kucinich but the Democratic Party as a whole pisses me off to no freaking end.
It was a ridiculous question; Kucinich gave a humorous answer that the media is now pretending was some deadly serious endorsement of UFO conspiracy theorists. And Democrats are just nodding along.
The report was from Shirley MacClaine. Let's face it, Kucinich might have walked in and said, "Wow, that was such a weird thing to see, and it really made me think of our place in the universe." It's not difficult to think that maybe MacClaine puts a bit of embellishment on issues.
This is the same media that treated the juvenile Ronald Reagan like the quick wit of the century. No one questioned his sanity when he announced: "The bombing will begin in five minutes." They let him slide with quips about "welfare queens" that didn't exist. But let a Democrat make a comment clearly intended to put off a stupid-ass question with some humor, and he's the nut.
Seriously, do we have to help Matthews on this one? He's just flat out wrong.