Rednecks everywhere are cutting their mullets, slitting their wrists...

Oh the foul stench of betrayal. Worse than Obama as honored guest of NASCAR. Worse than realizing that yes, maybe the GOP is full of rich hypocritical bastards who use the flag and the cross to dupe us. Worse than trying having to get a license for your kid's assault rifles away. Or paying too much for that saggy ass tattoo. Or keeping Brett Favre out of a Packer uniform!
Bud...bought by the Belgians?! Zounds! What's next--they buy up IHOP and Dennys to serve Belgian Waffles? The Waffle House itself--there off the interstate...off the frontage road...'round the corner from my doublewide... offering "smothered Brussels sprouts?"
Just kidding, white people. But my question is--will this turn Bud drinkers into connisseurs of my favorite beers, which happen to be Becks and Stella? "Hard working Americans" (in Hillary-Rove-speak) becoming metro, urbane? First they're selling off their Ford F-10s for effecient cars...now this? Maybe Obama has a chance. Or, sadly, will Becks and Stella Artois degenerate to the level of Bud swill? I'm sure Europeans don't want that. But hey, sign of the times. Sell off America, Americana. The St. Louis Cardinals will be called the Canals, and they'll play in
King Leopold Field (they'll be sure to flash photos of the rape of the Congo to make the black fans feel at home). We do it to ourselves and don't hold the same hotshots who tell us to be patroits accountable as they float off on their gilded parachutes.

What to do about the Clydesdales, however? The Chinese are buying them. Yummy with scallions and plum sauce...washed down by an "Antwerp Lite."

Friday Not-so-Funnies: Sudan, again

A day late, a dollar and thousands of bodies short. The International Criminal Court will seek to charge President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan with genocide and crimes against humanity. It's the first time the court's gone after a sitting head of state. Check out the story here. Karl Rove, supposedly in retirement yet somehow still covered by executive privilege, is ringing Dubya now saying "Ya know, this might not be such a great precedent for you..."

No need to rehash what this guy did in Darfur, or the regime's rapine war in southern Sudan. It is yet another item Islam refuses to discuss. The key here is that I have no doubt our pals the Chinese will somehow rescue him or indirectly pressure the ICC. No doubt.

Thoughts?

Friday Funnies-Bill Clinton: it's summer but he's in winter...

My Princeton classmate Todd Purdum, whom we're lining up to help grace our happy crew at the nascent Hoya Journalism Department with some wisdom in return for grossly underfunded honoraria, stirs the pot again vis. his wifey's ex-boss. Yep Todd's married to former Bubba White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers. Digression/explanation/boasting here, fanboys & girls: Todd is part of my class's Legion of Super Heroes/Mt Olympus/'36 Yankees/'70 Orioles line up of journalistic cool m-fs: Barton Gellman, Joel Achenbach, Liza Mundy, Lisa Belkin Gelb, Michael (Money Ball) Lewis, and let us not forget Martha McCully, HGTV celeb and former Editor-in Chief of every woman's favorite waiting room at the OB-GYN's office magazine, InStyle.

Getting back to it, in his new gig as Vanity Fair gadfly and general pundit (note I did not say public intellectual), Todd has been de-constructing the deconstruction (demolition?) of the Clinton dual monarchy. Here's one piece: click. You decide. What's the 411 on Bill's albatross-like drag on his equally bizarre-acting wife? Goes back, as always, to that Twilight Zone above his neck, not what's in his pants. Explains everything: the mental toll of the bypass surgery, to his Lucifer the Morning Star-like tumble from Soul Brother Numero Uno to the level of Hell just above Karl Rove's. The E! and Fox newsie element is Todd's whispering over Bill's supposed penchant for Gina Gershon. Gina is of course the vampire-mouthed actress who made stylized lezbo scenes a mainstream, hetero male fantasy in Bound and Show Girls (as opposed to reality: think the LPGA Tour and WNBA). Of course Gina's lawyers are sending letters and Bill has blown yet another gasket, though keeping on the pointless message that somehow Hillary was subject to a vast anti-woman conspiracy. Um...it's called "malice," and "damages" Gina, Bill. If you are a public figure, you have to show reckless disregard for the truth, and damages. Which is why seldom do libel suits go forward. The damages part always tickle me when a jury says yeah, you've been libeled, defamed, but based on your rep we award you $1 plus a few grand in attorneys fees. Ha! I have no doubt what Todd plumbed and Vanity Fair printed is true...somewhat true. Sorry.

Here's something else instructive from the piece...and well, almost banal: "Yes, Obama is a daring opponent who thinks he is hot shit and has benefited from the same enthusiasm, energy, and fresh-faced appeal that a fella named Bill Clinton once elicited (but he has suffered from some of the same skepticism, too). It is Clinton’s invariable insistence that his problems are someone else’s fault, and that questions or criticisms of him, his methods, motives, or means are invariably unfair, that is his unforgivable flaw."

My take: the underlying reasons mined by Todd for Bubba's meltdowns, continued geriatric HBO's Entourage-like behavior and paranoia might be groundbreaking to some NYC/DC/LA literatti and journalism snobs. To me? Meh... I see it all the time. It's the "old playa at the club." Not something so regal as the Lion in Winter. Nope, merely old playa who cannot play on. A tragedy only R Kelly or Eurpides and Aeshylus could love. Todd's just putting the usual uber-serious whiteboy over-gloss on it. I'd like to chronicle the Winter of about 75% of the Congressional Black Caucus myself...Vote Kevin Powell!

Et tu, Dude?

It's refreshing to see former true believers shit all over the fanatics, creeps and trivial fools they served. Makes for great books, films, etc. Publishers love them. Not even any need for sex in the manuscript. Hell, if 40% of it is true and the punditry is talking and the objects of the derision are squawking (note Karl Rove whining on Hannity & Colmes on the Goebbels Network...er...I mean Fox) and you have a best seller going into the summer "reading season." This book by former White House Press Secretary and favorite son of the University of Texas Longhorns Scott McClellan isn't just about Iraq, or Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby--it even dishes the dirt on Bush and Hurricane Katrina. Bravo publishing industry for enriching us, so. We who are about to die, salute you...

But seriously, tell all Ides of March stuff from former White House Press Secretaries are rare. They usually fall into three categories: true academic pieces/behind the scenes reconterie regarding historical events and personalities--think JFK's man Pierre Salinger. Amusing anecdotes and "hey--I didn't know THAT" books"--think Ford's boy Ron Nessen, and utter self-aggrandizing "hey I'm important...I know a lot...and the old boss still loves me even though we disagree on a few things" crap--yep, think Dee Dee Meyers. All sell well. But this kind of stuff? If it wasn't so creepy, then Rove wouldn't be on TV and the White House wouldn't be dismissing Bush's favorite Texas golden boy as a "disgruntled employee." Well, it's disgruntled employees, ex-spouses and bitter children or grandchildren who make the best damn whistleblowers.

Is it the Ides of March? Not quite as earth-shattering, but it does give plenty-plenty currency to everyone outside of Fox News viewers and pundits, 70% of GOP elected officials (excluding, interestingly McCain) and all the cartoonish wingnut bloggers out there. And you know, it's always been a rational argument that Caesar had it coming...