The Weekly Meat

Playing to the Base

  

 

The Hot List: A Primer for 2012

Time once again, folks, for stand-up philosophy, bald-faced prognostication, and linguistic prestidigitation. Herewith, the only political hot list you'll ever need this year.

 

Out	In
Mitt Romney	Michele Bachmann
Michele Bachmann	Rick Perry
Rick Perry	Herman Cain
Herman Cain	Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich	Jon Huntsman
Jon Huntsman	Rick Santorum? Really?
Rick Santorum	Ron Paul
Ron Paul	Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney	Barack Obama

 

Be safe out there, people; it's an election year.

Brief Notes on the Death of a Punk-Ass Bitch

Call me unconflicted, but as details of Sunday's successful raid against Osama bin Laden come out, I have to say, I'm hella impressed with the Entebbe-like precision of the U.S. special ops folks. After the disastrous fiascoes of Mogadishu and the aborted Iran hostage rescue, it's nice to see both supreme competency from our military forces and nearly unanimous support for their mission.

This is not to be naive about the continuing threat of terrorism. Whether it goes by the name of al qaeda or not, we still live in a world in which terrorism exists and in which the U.S. holds no special status. We must accept the fact that bad things will happen here as in the rest of the world, and we must learn to deal with it, in terms of mind-set, response, and recovery.

But it's nice for the face of the U.S. "war on terror" to have suddenly gone away (and with some fore-thought toward lessening the effects of OBL as a martyr), as it will force us to not oversimplify the issues with blind patriotism.

P.S. Of note:

• The Special Ops squad's workman-like adherence to Zombieland rule #2 — the double tap
• It would make me unspeakably happy if, after bin Laden's death in Abbottabad, al qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri would soon meet a similar fate in a place called Costellobad.
• This "typo" (yes, it's real), from the FOX "news" affiliate in Sacramento.
• Pakistan says what?

On Arizona

Palin posted this image back in March — during the same week in which she tweeted "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page."

Let me be clear: I'm as much for the second amendment as I am for all the rest. But let's not leave any of it out:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

If we have no use for the first half of that sentence, it follows that we have no use for the second.

Apathy = Defeatism: Go VOTE

Well, I was unable to gather together real words in the face of this critical midterm election, but former TWM guest author, and unindicted co-conspirator M. Landman has done it for me. And done it well. Give it a read, and then get out and vote.

Electoral Math

Hockey season is just getting into full swing, baseball is forcing Tim McCarver upon us, the day job is kicking my ass, and I simply do not have the stomach for a serious, journalistic look at the insanity that is American politics right now. And so, I choose to present instead a voters' pocket guide of sophomoric pictoral equations:

 

John Boehner = George Hamilton + an Oompa Loompa

 

 
Christine O'Donnell = Sarah Palin - Alaska - U.S. Constitution + blow-up sex doll mouth

 

Michele Bachmann = Sarah Palin + a young Tim Matheson + Nancy Kerrigan's teeth

 

Rand Paul = Ron Paul + Ryan Seacrest ÷ pi squared

 

Now, get out there next Tuesday and try not to vote for the crazies. Hope this helps!

Quick Question

Forgive the quick, vegetarian posting, but I'm working on something big. Not important, mind you, but big. Until then, I ask you this...

Is it possible that Ahmed Chalabi and Bibi Netanyahu could be the same Guy? You be the judge....

Ahmed Chalabi Iraqi politico	Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli politico

 

More Separated at Birth

Sometimes when real life meets TV and film, the resemblance is just uncanny...

Mitt Romney Out-of-work politico	Henry Francis Mad Men politico
Ann Coulter Republican nattering nabob	Jar Jar Binks Star Wars nattering Nabooan

 

Sarah Palin: Going Rouge

 
I'd wish that she just go away, but ultimately, Sarah Palin is good for the Democrats — politics aside, a buzzing reminder that our country must never again elect a leader as intellectually flaccid as he-who-must-not-be-named. And so (despite the fact that I threw up a little bit in my mouth when I saw last week's Newsweek cover) I celebrate her new ghostwritten "autobiography" with great enthusiasm, and offer, once again the Sarah Palin Dictionary for all parties interested in properly deciphering the hidden messages in her text the text that someone else wrote for her, Going Rogue: An American Life.

And for shits and giggles, with a nod to Gawker, a list of others whose biographies and autobiographies carry the hyperbolic "An American Life" title or subtitle...

The usual suspects:

• George Washington
• Martha Washington
• Benjamin Franklin
• Daniel Boone

From the left:

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton

To the right:

• Andrew Mellon
• Ronald Reagan

To the even further right:

• Charles Lindbergh
• Oral Roberts
• Pat Robertson
• Condoleeza Rice

To the arts:

• WIlliam Dean Howells
• Archibald MacLeish
• D.W. Griffith
• Joe Papp
• Burt Lancaster
• Jerry Garcia

To the world of sports and medicine:

• Ben Hogan
• Dr. Spock

To such historical footnotes (Google if you desperately must know) as:

• Lucius D. Clay
• Robert Swain
• Victorio Acosta Velasco
• Eddie Rickenbacker
• Marvin J. Vann

And let's not forget:

• Guitars

Let's also not forget that our current President writes his own autobiographies. Like a big boy. Who can spell. And think.

See you next week for The Weekly Meat Book Club!

Bush's Top 10

As President, George W. Bush has pulled far more idiocy than should be constitutionally allowed. Picking his top ten gaffes is like picking Johnny Cash's 10 best songs — which is to say time consuming and tedious, yet hugely entertaining at the same time.

Some day, years from now, we'll reflect back on his presidency, laugh nervously, and quickly change the subject. Until then, let's have a look at what The Dauphin had to offer us:

10. I was just, uh, watchin playoff football. And, uh, I fell. See, I forgot to chew ma pretzels well enough. Choked on em. Passed out. Fell down, hit ma face.

[Note: Call me cynical and a tad conspiratorial, if you must, but surely there are others not wearing a tinfoil hat who would agree that Bush's pretzel logic a tetch fuzzy, and that perhaps the untimely meeting of his face with the floor was caused by his fall off a certain wagon.]

9. Oh George, will you ever stop falling? First, the pretzel incident, and then (silly George), you tried to ride a Segway (self-balancing, mind you) — with predictable results.

8. Oh, such a pensive photo op from Air Force One — the magnanimous and empathetic President finally cutting short his vacation to fly high above the devastation of Hurricane Katrina (see #3)....

7. There are certain things that one could do to make oneself look achingly unpresidential. Monica Lewinsky in a White House alcove would be one. Dancing like Elaine on Seinfeld would be another. No video of Clinton and Monica, of course, but here's George doing his best white man's overbite.

6. "Yo, Blair!" Oh, G8 summit conference, how do I love thy comic genius? Your open microphones, featuring sophomoric fraternization between smug, foppish dolts, Bush stuffing his piehole with rolls and butter.... So good.

5. It's gotta be the shoes. It generally takes more than the standard amount of loathing to make a grown man throw a pair of shoes at anyone — let alone a sitting president. But if there's one area in which Bush excels, it's his ability to inspire more than the standard amount of loathing. Admittedly, Bush showed better than average presidential agility in managing to duck both shoes (very well thrown, by the way). I dunno about Clinton or Reagan, but I'm fairly certain Bush Sr., along with Nixon, Ford, and Carter would have taken those wingtips right in the mush.

4. Bush gives German Chancellor (German Chancellor, mind you, not German whorish page to the undersecretary of the Chancellor) Andrea Merkel a creepy, smirking, unsolicited back rub at the G8 summit.

3. Katrina. Three words: colossal fuck up. GWB: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." They didn't? Not even, say, a couple years earlier? George? GWB: "Heckuva job, Brownie." And may the 9th ward be in the White House, listening to Chocolate City, when a category fiver strikes Kennebunkport, Maine. And may you be trapped in the attic with an axe.

2. 9/11/01. In the days following the 9/11 attacks, let's agree that Bush was presidential, empathetic, rallying, and basically fine. But facing the eye of the shitstorm, he was a deer in the headlights. For seven painful, s l o w, minutes.

1. Two words: Mission Accomplished. Number one with a bullet. Because sometimes pictures do tell the story. And this single image continues to be the most glaring evidence to the fact that the Bush administration was grossly shortsighted and criminally negligent in their planning for, execution, and analysis of the Iraq war — the vital statistics of which can and should be seen here.

I've been waiting for the end of this era since before it even began. You're a pox and an embarrassment, Mr. Bush. May the White House door hit you in the ass on the way out.