Monday, August 04, 2003

Phoning It In

There is plenty of actual, real, important news stories to write about. There are journalists "working their connections," "pounding the pavement" and "calling in favors" to get that next headline, that next cover story. Then there's Jayson Blair who just flat out makes shit up. Me, I'm somewhere in between. I take the news other people work their asses off reporting, read the educated professional commentary about those reports, and then I make shit up about them. So I'm not like Jayson Blair at all - I'm not making up news, I'm making up commentary about the commentary about the news. That's like a Kevin Bacon level of separation from making up news.

Today's commentaries are courtesy of Kevin Drum and the always well-reasoned Josh Marshall (The entry you want is August 4th, 1:04PM. He seems to have fudged his permalink). Now, I know neither of these men (as is most often the case) though I find them both engaging writers and astute observers. However, neither men make the best of the opportunity presented by this Bush/Clinton hating comparison. They miss simple facts:

1. Clinton was elected, and the Newties couldn't handle it after 12 years of Reaganite (keeps Democratic would-be Supermen weak, docile and impotent) rule.

2. Bush was not elected but appointed, and that's a bunch of horse pocky.

3. Clinton had George Snuffleupagus, Bush had Ari Fleischer. HUGE hair follicle difference. Bald people are hateful people.

4. Bush is a slacker, taking off nearly 27 percent of his presidency, while Clinton was working, hard, in the Oval Office.

5. I was one of the 50, 996, 039 who voted for Gore vs. the 50, 456,141 who voted for Bush. I am part of the majority.

The list could go on and on, ad infinitum. Not if I was writing it, mind you, as I pretty much fizzled after George Snuffleupagus. Though I think George's eyebrows are more pronounced than his hirsute muppet namesake.

I didn't have squat today, and I'm sorry. I erased, deleted, shredded, circular filed (ad nauseam, ad infinitum destructo, etc) a much longer earlier post that made fun of J-Lo's butt. Oh well, them's the breaks.