When talking points collide

As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met with President Bush at the White House today (both men presumably enduring the event with forced smiles and pseudo-affable buddy posturing), Number 43 let fly with a puzzling new iteration of one of his trademarked "Bushisms" as the two leaders discussed that whole war/crisis thing going on in the Middle East -- specifically, the potential for democracy to flourish in the region.

"Bush and Schroeder also talked about the Middle East, with Bush stressing the need to put democratic institutions in place 'that survive the whims of men and women.'

He didn't offer specifics about what that meant, but repeated his belief that democracy and freedom can help stem terrorism."

At the tail end, there, the AP's Jennifer Loven was thoughtful enough to remind readers of the confusing tenor of the President's remarks, but, in true objective journalistic fashion, neglected to take the opportunity to provide the most likely interpretation: his remarkable ability to stay on message all week long!

Of course, Bush seemed to have forgotten which event this was, and that he had already proposed his "marriage as a union of a man and woman" constitutional amendment earlier in the week, and that today's particular remarks should have instead featured the President making the usual hyperbolic proclamations about making the world safe again.

Presumably, even, for homos, though we can forgive Bush for mixing up his discussions of conservative minority-as-majority regimes.

We hates the U.N....NO! We loves the U.N.!

from Reuters: Britain, Russia sweat as secret operations exposed

The British government was rocked by allegations by a former cabinet minister that it spied on United Nations chief Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war last year.

Confidential to Dennis Miller: "Paki" is a racial slur

Pre-commercial bumper on Dennis Miller, CNBC, Feb. 25, 2004.*

"'Paki' is an extreme racial slur used to refer to people of South Asian origin. It is a South Asian equivalent of the term 'Jap' or the 'N word.' President Bush apologized after using the word last year at a press conference."
(From, an open letter from the Asian American Journalists Association, March 4, 2003)

"Paki" is listed in The Racial Slur Database

To do: Send email to Dennis Miller to express your disapproval of racial slurs on television.

*Weird angle and TV screen-within-screen is the style of the bumper, not the screen shot

Talking Pod's Memo

Johnny on the Spot: 9 PM, via satellite... 11PM, live and in the flesh

Right wing relaxed fit Beltway pundit, John Podhoretz made a comedians-turned-pundits bank shot by appearing on Dennis Miller's eponymous CNBC show and Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night. He managed to trade quips with both men without breaking a sweat or changing his flattering grey suit with matching blue shirt and yellow tie (in honor of the troops?).

What he didn't manage to do, however, was come up with enough material for both shows. While promoting his new book Bush Country (the title of which is a deliciously naughty mnemonic tautology), he dusted off a few choice chestnuts. Very few.

From, Dennis Miller, 9PM EST, Feb. 24, 2004:

Dennis Miller: Gimme three or four the most crazy liberal ideas about our President.

John Podhoretz: Well, I think I got eight of them in the book. One of them, of course, is that he's an idiot—which I think that anyone who believes by now is an idiot because he keeps de-pantsing people who underestimate him... The other is that he's a puppet of his dad, uh, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, the neo-conservatives—no one can decide who he's a puppet of because he's not a puppet, he's his own man... Liberals think that he's a religious fanatic... [They] say he's a cowboy... These are some of ways he's mischaracterized, misrepresented.

From, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 11PM EST, Feb. 24, 2004:

John Podhoretz: I do believe that a lot of people who criticize the President do criticize him in a reckless and irresponsible and unfair fashion. As you mentioned, I go through the book, eight, what I call 'Crazy Liberal Ideas About Bush.' One that's he's a moron, one that he's a puppet, one that he's a religious fanatic, one that he's like Hitler, and so on...

Repeat it one more time, and Beetlejuice will appear!

Other Recently Proposed Constitutional Amendments

Dogs Constitutionally- recognized as better than cats

No more special treatment for Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate

Paul made the Constitutionally- recognized best Beatle

Infield Fly Rule unilaterally banned

Lefties to be forced to become righties, or be burned at the stake

Discussions about the weather in elevators no longer protected by First Amendment

Super intelligent robots, should they be invented, never to be endowed with human emotions under penalty of being unplugged

About Face

[Thanks, Dave, who waited two weeks for this joke.]

Amending prior amendments (Amended)

As expected, President Bush (decked out in full white-male, closed-minded power-broking asshole regalia) came out in support of a constitutional amendment today which would aim to specifically ban same-sex marriages, ostensibly in an attempt to "prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever" after the occurrence of events in California, Massachusetts and New Mexico which have indicated that "a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization."

That fundamental institution, of course, is the ability of one man and one woman to marry. Historians familiar with the establishment of religion, the writing of the Magna Carta, the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, and the onset of the American Revolution know this firsthand: these events were each based primarily upon the ability of men and women to wed, and were in no way grounded upon issues of individuality or self-respect or self-governance or human and civil rights. Right? Oh, I'm sorry, I was reading from the rightwing playbook there for a moment.

Back to that most fundamental of institutions, marriage...

Bush went on to explain, "Our government should respect every person and protect the institution of marriage. There is not a contradiction between these responsibilities."

Hmmm...let's take a look at the current Bill of Rights and the other extant amendments to the current United States Constitution. I think I see some of these potential "contradictions," to say the least, despite President Bush's reassuring words to the contrary...

Article IX. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Article X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Article XIV. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If, in some burst of mass hysteria and irrationality on the part of our legislative body, this proposed 28th Amendment is passed, we can hopefully look forward to the eventual and subsequent passage of Article XXIX, which, in the tradition of Article XXI, would state, "Section 1. The twenty-eighth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."

At which point the U.S. Constitution will be nothing more than a cheapened document, comprised of little more than the expression of a series of conflicting values, borne of an "issues of the moment" ideology.

RELATED: Immigrating To Canada - Resources For Moving To Canada

There are two things wrong with this picture

ANSWER KEY:

1. The bus in the center, presumably destroyed by a suicide bomber, much like yesterday's blast which killed 8 people and injured scores more.

2. The wall itself, a 24-foot-high concrete monstrosity subject to review by an international tribunal at the Hague today to debate the "legality" of the wall, a gargantuan construction which certainly plays no part in dehumanizing Palestinians, but instead provides security for Israelis and prevents suicide bomber attacks (See answer key item #1, step, and repeat).

Weather Report from Hell: Temperatures dipping below 0°

Holy fucking shit: Noam Chomsky wrote an Op-Ed in today's New York Times: A Wall as a Weapon.

Related: Pigs Fly; Lion Lays Down with Lamb.

Suggested themes to avoid at NYC's 2004 Republican National Convention

Actual waste products

As Ed Gillespie, Karl Rove, et al prepare for this fall's upcoming Republican National Convention in Manhattan, we thought it wise to advise the party's pollsters to not have President Bush's chief economist N. Gregory Mankiw give one of his customarily rousing speeches about economic populism, which, in the past, have gone something like this:

Outsourcing jobs overseas is "probably a plus for the economy in the long run...outsourcing is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."

Perhaps Gillespie and Rove might consider having Pennsylvania State Legislator Frank LaGrotta speak:

"I wonder if George Bush believes this. I doubt it, I tell myself. George Bush is a 'compassionate conservative.'

Compassion: A feeling of empathy, concern, care...

Outsourcing: Treats working Americans like waste products of a Robin-Hood-in-reverse strategy to rob from the poor and give to the rich."

OK, scratch LaGrotta, too. Better to avoid the topic entirely and stick to "safe" themes, like recalling how close Madison Square Garden is to Ground Zero.