I tried to be bloggier for a change, but i do not think it worked too well. Skip it i say.
In the news this week, Laura Bush brought down the house at the White House Correspondents Dinner. She was a real knockout, a hoot, a holler, just hooting up the place, putting our country’s alpha power brokers and B-list celebs in stitches. [Trouble with that link? Use this]
The press loved it. A sense of humor coming from these people is, I suppose, something to be…grateful for? Do I sense the garnering of…respect? No, not quite respect, but perhaps some relief, a grateful release. A break from all the outrage – both sides know each other perfectly well right now, we’ve seen all the other’s dirty secrets but we’re all stuck in the room together for the next few years so let’s just take a breather, crack a smile or two…
The Daily Show turned LB’s joke about GWB milking a male horse into a foul howler for blushing sailors. They played a tape of Laura talking about George dousing himself in horse spunk. But the more outrageous joke was not mentioned on the Daily Show. Laura cracked about about how her husband’s “answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw.” Yes, outrageous. See, hee hee, she’s talking about his approach to problems, and when she says ‘cut it down’ she’s referring to both chainsaws and trees, and bombs and people!
She does it with a warm smile and a plate of hot pie, just like a proper plantation dame. Aw shucks Ms Bush. Aw shucks. But there’s something more than just homey about these people. It’s something... erotic. The whole clan is burly, a bunch of burly Texans; it’s not just that they swagger, it’s that sometimes (definitely not always) they do it with style…Style or unmitigated gall, but when you’re talking about a cowboy it’s hard to tell one from the other. It's not even a useful distinction, as long as he walks away from a fight still standing.
Of course, his poll numbers are the worst they’ve ever been; you wouldn’t quite say the nation is regretting, but there’s a good four or five percent of the people out there who are maybe wondering a bit about what they bought into here. Gotta give props, then, to the savvy move of rolling her out in an event that’s both utterly free of gravitas AND attended by an unmatched span of all cards and characters. It’s a light touch, this womanly wile to make the whole operation seem grounded. A light touch is really the most they need any more.
The biggest story of the week, though, was that Paula Abdul fucked an American Idol. The bombshell story threatens to besmirch this institution, American Idol, the democratic forum through which weekly we as Americans participate (or don’t) in the “pure, untrammeled expression of diverse individual opinions that congeal, thrillingly, into an expression of the common will.” How, after having believed in so much for so long, will America ever believe again?
Meanwhile, Al Gore was awarded a medal for inventing the internet.
The movie liberals should be renting right now isn’t All the President’s Men, it’s freaking Revenge of the Nerds.
The press loved it. A sense of humor coming from these people is, I suppose, something to be…grateful for? Do I sense the garnering of…respect? No, not quite respect, but perhaps some relief, a grateful release. A break from all the outrage – both sides know each other perfectly well right now, we’ve seen all the other’s dirty secrets but we’re all stuck in the room together for the next few years so let’s just take a breather, crack a smile or two…
The Daily Show turned LB’s joke about GWB milking a male horse into a foul howler for blushing sailors. They played a tape of Laura talking about George dousing himself in horse spunk. But the more outrageous joke was not mentioned on the Daily Show. Laura cracked about about how her husband’s “answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw.” Yes, outrageous. See, hee hee, she’s talking about his approach to problems, and when she says ‘cut it down’ she’s referring to both chainsaws and trees, and bombs and people!
She does it with a warm smile and a plate of hot pie, just like a proper plantation dame. Aw shucks Ms Bush. Aw shucks. But there’s something more than just homey about these people. It’s something... erotic. The whole clan is burly, a bunch of burly Texans; it’s not just that they swagger, it’s that sometimes (definitely not always) they do it with style…Style or unmitigated gall, but when you’re talking about a cowboy it’s hard to tell one from the other. It's not even a useful distinction, as long as he walks away from a fight still standing.
Of course, his poll numbers are the worst they’ve ever been; you wouldn’t quite say the nation is regretting, but there’s a good four or five percent of the people out there who are maybe wondering a bit about what they bought into here. Gotta give props, then, to the savvy move of rolling her out in an event that’s both utterly free of gravitas AND attended by an unmatched span of all cards and characters. It’s a light touch, this womanly wile to make the whole operation seem grounded. A light touch is really the most they need any more.
The biggest story of the week, though, was that Paula Abdul fucked an American Idol. The bombshell story threatens to besmirch this institution, American Idol, the democratic forum through which weekly we as Americans participate (or don’t) in the “pure, untrammeled expression of diverse individual opinions that congeal, thrillingly, into an expression of the common will.” How, after having believed in so much for so long, will America ever believe again?
Meanwhile, Al Gore was awarded a medal for inventing the internet.
The movie liberals should be renting right now isn’t All the President’s Men, it’s freaking Revenge of the Nerds.
posted by Greg Bloom at 5/09/2005 01:26:00 AM
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