The Tissue Of Lies under Bill Keller's excellent pro-war, reactionary stewardship has become so much fun that Kelso just reads it and can't help himself. Kelso thinks that Jeanneane Garofalo and the Air America crew save Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy have it all wrong. [Kelso thinks Jeanneane would be a pretty outstanding fuck and would relish the opportunity to get after her.] Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are a waste of time -- everybody knows they're shit on rye toast. What's the point of kicking a straw dog, when the Tissue keeps throwing up such excellent material.
Kelso was having a late supper and reading the Tissue's Book Review and came upon a light pan of Bernard Goldberg's Who's Ruined America?. The review was by Richard Brookheiser, a pretty fair Right-Winger who's got a nice turn of phrase and has been an ardent supporter of drug legalization since his bout with cancer and has made no bones about the reasons for his conversion. Here are the short strokes: Michael Moore is #1, which tells you all you need to know right there. Sure, Moore's a rich hypocrite, but he's pretty funny and usually has a point. Al Franken is #37. Now, that's just not fair. Franken's an honest Conservative Republican and may just become the next junior Senator from Minnesota albeit under the Democratic label. Where's Kenneth Lay and the rest of the corportate crooks? Where's W? Cheney? Rove? Pat Robertson? In an unsual bit of business, Courtney Love made Goldberg's list. Her crime? Being a "ho". Surprised Goldberg's every even heard of Courtney Love and surprised he'd stoop to using Negro slang, being the top-flight intellectual he claims to be. Kelso clocks Bernard Goldberg for being some square old guy with horrible old-man breath, ugly suits, dandruff and a swollen prostate and hardly an aficionado of the Riot-Grrrl scene. Well, live and learn.
Kelso make no pretentions about his bias -- he thinkes Hole's first two CDs rank right up there in the pantheon of rock classics. That Courtney Love is totally crazed up is not Kelso's problem. He'd ideally like to see her get her shit together and make good music again, but if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. Her problems are her own and are basically gossip fodder. She's not responsible for 2000 dead American soldiers, 30,000 maimed ones and the devastation of Iraq, as opposed to Goldberg's presumed heroes.
But who the fuck is Bernard Goldberg? Kelso has some sense that he used to work for CBS and wrote a book about the left-wing bias in mainstream media. How he made that case is beyond Kelso's comprehension, but from all accounts, he failed. Kelso has never seen the man's face, but can imagine it: pudgy, Jewish, fat-lips, thinning kinky hair, unfashionable glasses and perhaps a virgin at 60. Probably a pretty good likeness of Shirer's quotation of Hitler's Jewish charicature from Mein Kampf. Or maybe a closet queen. Whatever he is, his views suck and Kelso would no longer like to be bothered by his presence on earth. Just die soon, thanks. You're old enough to join the majority, Bernard Goldberg. Please stop burdening us with your shpilkis. Brookheiser told it straight.
Is that Kelso being a self-hating Jew again? No, it's Kelso hating a shit-bird who happens to be Jewish.
Once again, when you read the Tissue Of Lies as person of Jewish ancestry, it's really, really hard not to feel lots and lots of shame. How is it that this Bernard Goldberg creep and Kelso belong to the same tribe? Kelso understands that he's being way too hard on the Tissue here. The Tissue did its job. It found a smart conservative to pan Goldberg, and Kelso has no trouble with O'Reilly, Hannity and Anne Coulter -- they're just silly and Coulter can actually be funny from time to time. This Goldberg character wants to be taken seriously. Kelso doesn't take Bernard Goldberg seriously. Richard Brookheiser doesn't take him seriously. Is this turd actually making money from these stupid books? Kelso reckons that they're way over the heads of the average American and not entertaining enough for the Wal-Mart crowd. Guess he falls somewhere in the Thomas Friedman zone. Middle-brow crap somewhere slightly to the right of pseudo-scientist, Malcolm Gladwell. When, by the way, is that dildo going to be called out for making shit up and masturbating on the page?
And since we're on the subject, how is it that the fantasies Gladwell came up with on the crapper outsell James Surowiecki's far more penetrating analyses? Got Kelso stumped.
Kelso's Nuts love you all.
5 comments:
Kelso, thought you might like these clips
Russell Means on Cindy Sheehan
http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/means512k.mov
Texas Wacko's on The War
http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/probush512k.mov
g
PS --- what is the purpose of the "Word Verification" ?
Just got back from London, where I was reading the latest Howard jacobson. I recommend The Making of Henry, though it belongs to a subgenre that kind of sickens me, i.e. novels by 60-ish writers where 60-year old men have sexual affairs with much younger women. This includes books I have read by Roth, Bellow, Malamud, Begley, and others. Surely there must be Gentile versions, but I can't think of any offhand. Updike? Does anyone know?
In London I visited the inspiring new Churchill museum and as I went through, the following occurred to me: what if in 1935 Roosevelt had, in the face of global opposition, invaded Germany to remove Hitler? Would that have been a repulsive war? If not, how is it different from Saddam? Kurds, not Jews and Gypsies?
I need a thoughtful answer here. As someone most of whose family was exterminated by Hitler, how can I not cheer when the US involves itself to end tyranny and human suffering, for whatever reason, no matter how unpalatable?
In order:
G- the "word verification" is to stop the blog-spammers
Harvey: Can't give you the answer you want. If you think the war is just, Kelso cannot sway you and doesn't particularly want to try, although causing human suffering to end human suffering has that (Westmoreland?) stink about it that begs to be avoided.
Just sit back, relax and enjoy the show and hope it turns out that it was all for the good is Kelso's response. (I would have gone for Waylon & Madam for the block, but this may work out).
As far as the US's role in ending tyranny, it's a pretty nice idea. Kelso would not have enjoyed living under Saddam's thumb. There's plenty of tyranny in Africa where tinpot dictators are doing first-class Ssddam impersonations daily. Let the US do something about that, too. China wouldn't be a bad place to continue, either. Why didn't they remove Saddam from power in 1991? or 1992? or 2000? Or August 2001? Kelso has no answers, but has a lot of questions.
As far as the Hitler issue goes, it's a sorrowful thing but not the Ace Of Trumps in a political decision. Lots and lots of Neo Cons use it. It's maybe the 10 of Trumps. Or the 7, 8 or 9 if you're long, the metaphor meaning your argument is really good. This argument is OK: 5 trumps w/three honors and maybe 15 points overall. It's the Christopher Hitchens argument and it's not BAD per se.
The Kurds are an afterthought and we both know it. They were suffering under selfsame Saddam at least as far back as 1979. An independent Kurdistan wouldn't be a bad idea, but there's realpolitik involved in that having to do with natural resources, geography, etc., no? So, after this war is over if it's ever over, the Kurds will be under the brutal yoke of some hard-core Muslim dictator. What will it all have been worth?
Can't be more thoughtful than than that -- Kelso's knowledge is too limited, his IQ is too low, and he is sorely lacking in the sensitivity department. Very little of that stuff left in Kelso, but that's his problem.
Glad the US entered WWII when they did. 1935 would have been better And wish US had been watching things a little closer in 1929 after the ballot-box ascension of Hitler, although Kelso reckons Hoover (not Roosevelt) had a couple of other things to attend to back home.
Harvey:
On to the more pleasant topic of the literary genre you've identified...isn't Begley a goy (ha-ha, father and son sure have hidden the Jewisness well, no?)?
Updike and Cheever must have novels like that but as Kelso has only read the Rabbit series by Updike and has read about 50 pages of Cheever in his whole useless life, HE cannot answer the question. "G" is pretty literary, she might know.
Now that you've raised the issue, Kelso is starting to worry that when he hits 60 or so, a plausible scenario is that he takes up with a gorgeous 28-YO Vegas skank and writes that horrible novel. If that happens, you are deputized to cut Kelso's hand off before he can finish the novel.
Harvey:
Just curious. What was it about Kelso's taking after Bernard Goldberg that made you so maudlin? Some family connection? A personal hero? Or was Kelso just too eager to hit a tribester hard in your estimation?
You know Kelso is against the wars and has always been so? That couldn't have been news.
Maybe it was because the Goldberg diatribe was the at the top of the blog.
Keep flopping, dude. Your comments are always great.
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