Cheers and Jeers: Thursday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Late Night Snark---100% Quarantined:

"At a press conference somebody finally stood up to Bush: a bird shit on him. Here's what is wrong with this man: he looked at it, and then wiped it off with his bare hand. And this is the guy who doubts that he descended from an ape."
---Bill Maher
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"This week Dick Cheney's daughter, Mary, and her partner, Heather, had a baby boy. Afterwards, Dick Cheney teared up and said, 'I've been asking her to bring a boy home for thirty years.'"
---Conan O'Brien
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"Experts said this is going to be a very busy hurricane season. To which FEMA said, 'Not for us.'"
---Jay Leno
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"During a concert of the Virginia symphony at the 400th anniversary celebration of Jamestown, President Bush briefly took over conducting the orchestra. Which explains why the orchestra is now four trillion dollars in debt."
---Seth Meyers
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"The [Iraq funding] bill contains a plan to establish 18 benchmarks. It's sort of like punishing your child by saying, 'If you don't get your grades up, you are grounded---unless, of course, you would like to go out. And by the way, you are grading yourself. And I keep the pot in the silverware drawer."
---Jon Stewart
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Yeah. Sort of like. Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!]  RIGHTNOW!  [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, May 31, 2007

Note:  Tomorrow's C&J will be a west coast-friendly affair.  Join us at 4pm PDT (7pm eastern) with a mouse in one hand and your favorite cocktail in the other.  Especially if you're driving.  There will be a major bombshell announcement that will make even Baby Jesus cry.

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By the Numbers:
Days `til Bush leaves office: 600
Days `til the Democratic presidential debate at St. Anselm College in NH: 3
Percent of Pakistanis and Indonesians who say that attacks on civilians are sometimes justified to defend Islam: 8%
Percent of Americans who say attacks on civilians are sometimes justified: 24%
(Source: Harper's Index)
Number of Democratic candidates who will be participating in the Fox News/CBC debate: 3 (Gravel, Kucinich, Biden)
Number of cars that passed through the York, Maine tollbooth over the Memorial Day weekend: 671,000

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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:

"I do make a rule to skip talk of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll---but when Mark Foley turns out to be the chairman of the House Committee on Missing and Exploited Children, you know you just have to sit down like a tired old dog and scratch for a while."

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Puppy Pic of the Day:  God bless those who adopt.

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CHEERS to the beginning of the beginning of...something.  EVERYBODY SHUT UP FOR A MINUTE!  David Broder---the sage oracle of American journalism---is about to make another prediction about when the occupation of Iraq will come to an end.  Please, sir, we know you have come far and your bones are weary.  But tell us...when will unicorns roam free in Mesopotamia, allowing our brave young soldiers to return to their kinfolk in the village?

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I think that time is coming soon.
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Sacrifice the goats and prepare the welcome feast!  Our long national nightmare is over!

CHEERS to double dustups.  Interesting dichotomy: while the Democratic base is still seething over the Iraq funding bill voted on last week, the Republican base is livid over the immigration bill.  The liquor, cigarette and chocolate industries have a name for this rare phenomenon: the mother lode.

CHEERS to the quiet tightening of the noose.  While the right-wing gasbags and Holy Beltway Pundits continue to predict that the U.S. Attorney scandal will wither away, the Justice Department has announced its intention to pour gas on the fire.  There isn’t a popcorn tub big enough...

JEERS to disturbing the peace.  Ugh.  President Bush is vacationing up here in July, and he's bringing his honorary frat boy playmate Vladimir Putin.  By the time they leave, we'll be lucky if there's a single mailbox standing.

CHEERS to crumbling walls.  If you believe these Gallup numbers, the religious right's condemnation of gay people is working...in reverse:

Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, conducted each May, finds current public tolerance for gay rights at the high-water mark of attitudes recorded over the past three decades. ... The clearest example of the recent renewal in pro-gay rights attitudes comes from a question asking Americans whether they believe homosexual relations should be legal. Public tolerance for this aspect of gay rights expanded from 43% at the inception of the question in 1977 to 60% in May 2003. Then in July 2003, it fell to 50% and remained at about that level through 2005. Last year, it jumped to 56% and this year it reached 59%, similar to the 2003 high point.

Well.  Looks like we'll need to rent a few more folding chairs for pride day.

JEERS to science, Republican-style.  Senator and Not-Going-To-Be-President-Guy Sam Brownback raised his hand at the last Republican debate when the candidates were polled on who didn't believe in evolution.  Today he clarifies his position in The New York Times.  In short: "The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God." (A "he" god, of course.)  You should see the petri dish he uses to prove it---it's the size of a Buick.

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Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man.

After staring at a wall for six hours, right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin reaches deep into her cranium and pulls out The Big Question:  Will President Bush speak out against the treatment Miss USA received in Mexico?

No.

Now back to Cheers and Jeers

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

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JEERS to worst governor in the world.  Nevada, you must be so proud:

In the last few months, [Jim] Gibbons, a Republican, announced a plan to turn coal into jet fuel to raise money (problematic, as Nevada has no coal to speak of) and proposed paying for a $3.8 billion shortfall in highway construction money by selling water rights under state highways (it turns out the state did not actually own the rights).

He told a local editorial board he could not pronounce the name of his energy adviser because she was "Indian"---she is Turkish---and vetoed a bill that would stop budget-busting tax breaks for builders of "green" buildings before issuing an executive order to end them anyway (with the exception of four companies).  Mr. Gibbons is the subject of a Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into whether he failed to report gifts from a military contractor while serving in Congress.

If his mom didn’t make him spend his mornings at day care, the place would really be a mess.

JEERS to scraping the bottom of the barrel.  So last night we're watching Hardball, and who does Chris Matthews have on to talk about Homeland Security?  The former head of the Arabian Horse Association and Loser of A Major U.S. City, Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown.  And coming up tonight: Monica Goodling spells out the ABCs of legal ethics.

CHEERS to fresh reminders.  The next Democratic presidential debate is Sunday evening from 7 to 9 at Saint Anselm College.  If CNN had any guts, they'd sit the candidates at a large round table and let 'em go at it, unfettered, for two hours.  There---I managed to put "CNN" and "guts" in the same sentence.  Where's my pony?

JEERS to cheers.  Michael and I thank you for all the nice comments made here yesterday over our 14th anniversary as official ambassadors of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Unfortunately we started fighting about who was more thankful, one thing led to another, and one of us ended up sleeping on the porch.  Man, crickets are noisy little fuckers.

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Two Years Ago in C&J: May 31, 2005...

JEERS to the President of Pabulum.  George W. Bush took advantage of a solemn Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National cemetery to proclaim that the invasion of Iraq was, and is, all about payback for the attacks on 9/11.  Which explains why, instead of Taps, the bugler played Fleetwood Mac's "Little Lies."

CHEERS to keeping Old Europe old.  French voters, tossing a wrench into the European Union's plans to take over the world, voted `Non!' on the 40,000-word European Union Constitution.  I don't pretend to understand the 40-thousand-word document, but I will say this: if you can't write it on the back of a cocktail napkin, it's probably too complicated.

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And just one more...

JEERS to G.I. Joe.  Private Lieberman dropped in on Baghdad yesterday and said the bad guys are on the run.  He had to wear body armor and surround himself with U.S. troops while he said it...presumably because he didn’t want to get trampled by the stampede of bad guys fleeing.  And the Republic is saved again.

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See ya next month!  Floor's open...what are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless Testimonial:

"People have begun to realize that Cheers and Jeers is not quite as bad as those who said it was before they had read it."
---Senator Jon Kyle (R-AZ)
5/29/07

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