Demon In The White House

I rarely use this blog to spew the word "hate". Oh, sure. I proclaim my dislike, my abhorrence, my loathing, my despising, my fed-up-ness and a few other things, but I rarely use the word hate. I feel myself getting closer, however. Especially when the topic of Rush Limbaugh and whatever comes out of his ridiculous mouth comes up.

See, according to the fine folks over yonder at Politico, yesterday on his radio show (which is listened to by a frighteningly large number of people who seem to really enjoy and agree with what he has to say) he made reference to some pictures of President Barry that had been posted on The Drudge Report website. What he said was idiotic at best. He said, "...folks, these pictures, they look demonic. And I don't say this lightly. There are a couple pictures, and the eyes, I'm not saying anything here, but just look. It is strange that these pictures would be released...It's very, very, very strange. An American president has never had facial expressions like this. At least we've never seen photos of an American president with facial expressions like this. "

What. The. What. Seriously? Demonic? What is that supposed to mean? Was he referencing a Harris Poll taken earlier this year which indicated that 24% of Republicans believed that President Barry was the Antichrist? Or is he just grasping at any straw that he can to try and bring down more Democrats (which will inevitably happen) in the upcoming election? Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that there aren't plenty of Democrats who do deserve to be booted out of whatever office they're in. There are. There are a lot of Republicans who need to get the boot as well. But what is Rush Limbaugh's rationale for saying something so incredibly asinine? I guess only he knows.

First of all, President Barry has got to be the most photographed President in history. He's on TV every freaking day. And when he's on vacation, we (the public) are inundated with photos of him eating ice cream the entire time! I don't care that he eats ice cream! Why do I need 57 different photos from 36 different angles and 12 commentators giving me the low down on what flavor he chose? I don't remember it being like this with other Presidents. Did we have a million photographs of Bush flying all over the place all the time? It doesn't seem like we did. (Then again, Bush would have never been accused of looking demonic because he always looked so damned clueless that that's all anyone could ever focus on.)

The point here is that when you're having your photo taken all the time by a bazillion different outlets, the chances increase that you're going to have a few that are not so flattering. That doesn't mean you're demonic or possessed or anything. And it certainly doesn't mean that Rush Limbaugh should be trying to rile up the inexplicable masses that listen to his drivel every day.

My second point was that since when are everyone's facial expressions all the same? Or since when can they all fit into the same category? I'm pretty sure that Rush probably has some expressions that aren't seen anywhere else on this earth. (That's a good thing, in case you were wondering.) It's just a ridiculous thing to say. I wish that someone with so much radio time and (I hate to say it) so much power to sway the opinions of the meeker and weaker among us would use his pulpit for something useful instead of fear mongering. That's all. (And by the way, is he going to tell us that the photo of him doesn't look a little demonic? Geez, at least President Barry isn't spewing smoke out of his orifices. Though that would be a million dollar shot if anyone were to come up with one. I'll give you that.)

There Are Not Always Two Sides

Do both "sides" of an issue always need to be presented when covering a story in a journalistic or media realm? Like when you're covering a bunch of recent suicides by teenagers who were bullied because they were gay. Do you really need to run the opinion of folks who are anti-gay? I'm not so sure that you do. The Washington Post, surprisingly, felt a little differently.

For some reason, on National Coming Out Day (for whatever that is worth, as it would have been bad on any day), The Washington Post felt the need to run an editorial from a one Tony Perkins (not of Psycho fame). Mr. Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council and seems to be very against those who are gay. Naturally, his editorial, while not condoning any of the bullying that goes on, made it clear that he felt that "...homosexual activist groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family." Uhh, OK?

I'm kind of not even sure what that means. I don't know that it can be considered "exploiting a tragedy" to send the message that people need to be tolerant of other people. That seems like a message that doesn't have a whole lot of exploitation in it. So, even though gay kids are getting bullied to the point where they off themselves, we still shouldn't send the message that being gay is all right. That seems...um...idiotic.

But what is more idiotic is how The Washington Post handled being called on the matter of running his editorial on National Coming Out Day. According to the huffy folks over at The Huffington Post, GLAAD made mention via Twitter (good Lord...) of The Washington Post's giving editorial space to Mr. Perkins on that particular day. (By the way, I don't have so much of a problem with The Post allowing the editorial to begin with, but it didn't really have anything to do with bullying. If they wanted to allow him space to voice his opinion, that's fine, but I'm thinking that it probably should have been on the topic at hand and not just what Mr. Perkins wanted to address.)

For some reason, The Washington Post decided to respond in an odd fashion. They Twittered back (good Lord...) with this:

They're working to cover both sides? Of...bullying? No, wait. That can't be it. They're working to cover both sides of...teen suicide? No, wait. That can't be it, either. They're working to cover both sides of...oh, for cryin' out loud, I give up! I don't know that there are two sides of the subject of kids who get bullied might off themselves. I think that's a pretty one-sided discussion. Sure, there are two sides to the whole being gay in the first place debate. I get that. But that isn't what they were talking about. They were talking about gay teens being bullied to the point where they did themselves in. There aren't two sides to that and giving an open forum to someone to talk about what he believes are the evils of homosexuality under the guise of it being the "other side" is simply insane.

Why couldn't Mr. Perkins simply focused on the evils of bullying and how, since it's irrational to think that we're ever going to be able to put a stop to it, we can help kids from becoming so despondent over it that they want to die? Why couldn't he have gone with that angle? Why the continued attack upon those who are homosexual? The point was the bullying. Can he not get off of his anti-gay soapbox for just one day? Seriously? Please.

She's Not Me

Who is managing wacky Christine O'Donnell's campaign for Senate over there in Delaware? (I think that she's representing the MILF party.) I'd really like to hear their reasoning for her latest TV ad, as I'm not so sure that you need to automatically assume that everyone who watches TV is going to be aware of the fact that she claims to have dabbled in witchcraft (whatever the hell that means) when she was younger and therefore, that justifies having that disclaimer right off the bat. Wait. What?

Correct. See, back in October of 1999 when Bill Maher had her on his show, Politically Incorrect, she claimed "I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do....One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that...We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar." Uh-huh. OK, then. Since I've already been over this, I'll direct you over to the folks at Think Progress for the video of that whole debacle.

Now, maybe you hear that clip and think that she's a nutjob. Maybe you hear that clip and you think that you're not going to vote for anyone that whack-a-do. You know what I'm guessing that you're not thinking? I'm guessing that you're not thinking that she's really a witch. You know. Because of the whole witches not being real sort of thing. Yeah, that. But she apparently seems to think differently. She seems to think that it is really important to point out that she is not a witch. Oh, for cryin' out loud.

So, here's her first ad. First thing she says is, "I'm not a witch." Uh, yeah. We know. No one is. But seriously, if you hadn't heard the whole deal about her and her witchy-poo dabblings and then that commercial came on, wouldn't your head spin around just a little bit as you exclaimed, "What the hell is she talking about?!" I'm pretty sure that's what's going to happen with several people over there. Does the ad get better after that? Not really. Next thing she says is, "I'm nothing you've heard." See, I don't know about that one. I've heard she's a little cuckoo and I'm inclined to agree a little bit with that assessment. But what I won't agree with is what she says next. She states, "I'm you."

Yeah. See, you're really not. You're really not me. I'm not the one who stated that I believed that folks shouldn't masturbate. I'm not the one who said she wanted to stop the country from having sex. I'm not the one who said that masturbation was the equivalent of committing adultery. I'm not certainly not the one who said, "We took the Bible and prayer out of public schools. Now we're having weekly shootings. We had the 60s sexual revolution, and now people are dying of AIDS." (I don't even know what that means.) And I don't buy into the theory that "American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains." (Again, I don't even know what that means.)

All of that? That's not me. That's her. And it scares the hell out of me to think that she could be sitting in the Senate helping to decide what is best for the country.

At Least He's In Jail For Something

It was fifteen years ago yesterday that OJ Simpson was inexplicably (completely without splick) found not guilty in the deaths of two people that he so obviously seemed to have killed. Let's revisit that insane miscarriage of justice by watching the video of the verdict below. While I am glad that the man now languishes in a jail cell somewhere in Nevada, he couldn't have been put there soon enough if you're asking me.