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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Larry Flynt's new book, `Sex, Lies and Politics,' flirted with the NY Times bestseller list before dropping out of sight. Too bad, because it's a good read even though you won't find any new dirt in it. We found this a timely nugget:
"As for the intimidation factor in today's media, reporter Joe Conason got to the heart of it in an interview with Rich Bond, former chairman of the republican National Committee. "There is some strategy to it," Bond told Conason. "I'm a coach of kids' basketball and Little League teams. If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is work the refs." `Working the ref' means yelling and screaming about the unfairness of every call against you so the referee will think twice before blowing the whistle. You see this every night in pro basketball--guys acting outraged, pretending that the other guy fouled them. As Bond put it, the point is that "maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one."
For ten years or more, the mainstream media has cut the right-wingers far too much slack. Thoroughly intimidated, they tiptoe around Bush's deceptions, just like they did when Gingrich was trying to steal the government back during the Clinton years. The right-wingers have learned to work the ref so well that their supposedly `biased' treatment from the mainstream media is all you hear about, endlessly, from all the right-wingers who have their own huge pulpits in the mainstream media!"
C&J agrees with Flynt. Fortunately, rising liberal outlets like Daily Kos, Atrios, Media Matters for America and Air America are starting to frame---and balance---the debate, forcing the right-wingers to scream louder and louder. Because when you don't have the truth on your side, all ya got is lungs. Gimme an Amen.
Cheers and Jeers starts in the Extended Copy section... [Swooosh!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 24, 2004
By the Numbers:
Days 'til Republican Convention: 6 (To-do list: Surgically implant tennis ball in Tom Delay's mouth)
Days `til the First Debate: 37
Days 'til General Election: 70
U.S. Olympic medals: 66 (23 gold)
http://www.electoral-vote.com/ : Kerry 307 Bush 211
JEERS to Iraq violence. USA Today database says it ain't gettin' no nicer there since we gave them their country back: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-08-22-iraq-cover_x.htm. But Paul Wolfowitz's prediction was close--it's just that, instead of throwing flowers they're throwing vases. That blow up.
CHEERS to carnal distractions. Time magazine reports that protestors in NYC will get a $5 discount to the Museum of Sex if they wear a `Peaceful Political Activist' button issued by the city. Hey...what better way to meet face-to-face with a steady stream of Republicans?
CHEERS to unintentional comedians. Swift Boat Veterans For Truth on why they won't pull their ad: "It is not a Republican or Democratic issue. If John Kerry was a Republican, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would still run this ad." They added, "Thank you! We'll be here all week!"
CHEERS to USA Today. For pushing back with a few questions for Bush: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-23-bush-service_x.htm. We've said it before---don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
JEERS to Bob Dole. How pathetic---the Viagra huckster and formerly-honorable senator enters the swift boat fracas, questioning the validity of Kerry's wounds. So tell us again, sir, how you lost a game of `catch the grenade' with a tree in World War Two, and admitted your tiny leg scratch was "patched up with mercurochrome and a Purple Heart..."
CHEERS to free speech. George W. Bush on 527s: "I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election." Oh, silly me...that was 2002: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_atrios_archive.html#109328364122623194. He just can't stop flip-flopping, can he?
JEERS to not seeing the forest for the trees. As reported at `Tapped' blog (via Al Franken's blog), "...the second-biggest 527 in the U.S. is the Republican Governors Association, a group spun off by the Republican National Committee two years ago specifically to collect and harness soft money for state and local GOP candidates." Bet they're thrilled with Dear Leader today.
CHEERS to casting against type. Alan Alda joins `The West Wing' as a Republican with his eye on the White House: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&e=2&u=/nm/20040823/en_nm/television_
alda_dc. Boy, is he going to have to dumb himself down for that part.
JEERS to Hair on Fire: The Prequel. On this date in 1814, British forces attacked and torched Washington, DC during the War of 1812. The president and members of Congress fled to an undisclosed location. The 8/24 Commission report later said President Madison should have heeded the PDB titled: "King George III Determined to Strike In US."
CHEERS to weasels. Boots set a new course record at the Ferret Olympics in Oregon. He ran through an 18-foot long dryer hose in 6.15 seconds: http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/08/16/b1.cr.ferret.0816.html. Tank was the heaviest at 4 pounds. If you don't count the embarrassed Republicans who showed up.
JEERS to grownups gone wild. Nosy neighbor complains to St. Louis Health Department that a lemonade stand operated by two girls (one 10, one 12) is "blocking my walkway." Health department comes and shuts lemonade stand down for "selling unsafe ice cubes." Kids cry foul. Parents take to the airwaves. Health department apologizes. Girls learn a valuable lesson: "You don't have to sit there and take it." Nosy neighbor meets with John O'Neil to plot smear campaign. Oy.
CHEERS to the Spud Stud. On August 24, 1853, chef George Crum made the first potato chips (originally called Saratoga Chips) after a fussy customer complained his potatoes weren't sliced thin enough. And there's no Crum Monument in Washington D.C. because...?
Cheers and Jeers Flashback: February 24, 2004
CHEERS to public dissent. New York Times says up to a million people are expected to protest the GOP convention at Madison Square Garden in late August. Karl Rove offers suggestion for demonstrators' free speech zone: New Jersey.
JEERS to the screwy MPAA rating system. Roger Ebert on Passion of the Christ's R rating: "If it had been anyone other than Jesus up on that cross, I have a feeling that NC-17 would have been automatic." Even Nader?
Floor's open. What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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