The Hyperbole Bus

It looks like Obama isn't alone in jumping aboard the Hyperbole Bus today.

Here's Peggy Noonan, with more of her insipid flowery prose:

Who are The Elders? They set the standards. They hand down the lore. They're the oldest and wisest. By proceeding through the world each day with dignity and humanity, they show the young what it is that should be emulated. They're the tribal chieftains. This role has probably existed since caveman days, because people need guidance and encouragement, they need to be heartened by examples of endurance. They need to be inspired.

Who are these Elders-with-a-capital-E of which she speaks?

Newspaper reporters and TV anchormen.

She begins the piece with this:

When William Safire died the other day, we lost one of the Elders of journalism and the argumentative arts. We've been losing a lot of them lately: Walter Cronkite, Bob Novak, Don Hewitt, Irving Kristol. "The stars seem to be going out one by one," said Howard Stringer at Cronkite's memorial.

No, the piece isn't satirical. Yes, Pegs really believes this stuff.

Frank Rich and Cindy Sheehan

Frank Rich pulls out all the stops on this one: Sarah Palin as Grand Wizard of the Klan. Joe Wilson stepping over the free speech line. People protesting against their government = violent rage. Joe Wilson giving carte blanche to the oh-so-many nutcases out there, and man, there's plenty of 'em.

NYT: With all due respect to Jimmy Carter, the racist component of Obama-hatred has been undeniable since the summer of 2008, when Sarah Palin rallied all-white mobs to the defense of the “real America.” Joe Wilson may or may not be in that camp, but, either way, that’s not the news. As we watched and rewatched the South Carolina congressman’s star turn, what grabbed us was the act itself.

What made the lone, piercing cry of “You lie!” shocking was that it breached a previously secure barrier. It was the first time that the violent rage surging in town-hall meetings all summer blasted into the same room as the president. Wilson’s televised shout was tantamount to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. When he later explained that his behavior was “spontaneous” rather than premeditated, that was even more disturbing. It’s not good for the country that a lawmaker can’t control his anger at Barack Obama. It gives permission to crazy people.

Where was all this talk when Cindy Sheehan and thousands of others were protesting Bush at every turn?

Speaking of which, I have to tip my hat to Cindy Sheeehan. I thought she was just some loudmouth who would pipe down as soon as Bush left office. Turns out, she really is anti-war, no matter who is boss. This was Sheehan last month:

Cindy Sheehan and other antiwar activists held a press conference today at the Oak Bluffs School, where the White House press corps is working as its reports on President Obama during his vacation in Martha's Vineyard

Sheehan said that she's opposing Obama the same way she opposed George W. Bush. "The facade has changed but policies remain the same," she told reporters. "Integrity in our movement means we have to do same for Obama as we did for Bush."

Who knew that Cindy Sheehan would give me a cold slap of integrity right in the kisser?

Funny, though. I don't hear much about her these days. It could have something to do with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson's attitude: "Anybody who has given a son to this country has made an enormous sacrifice, and you have to be sympathetic. But enough already."

Odd. A few years back, Charlie gave interviews to Sheehan with words like, "Mom Stands Her Ground," and "Can Anti-War Moms Stop Bush?" written on the screen.

Now it's, "Shut up, Cindy."

The Most Trusted Name In News

It looks like it's "pick on the media day" over at Hot Air. I'll play along. They link to this clip of Wolf Blitzer taking part in Celebrity Jeopardy and...he doesn't do so well.

Wolf must have signed an ironclad contract with the guys at Jeopardy. I'm guessing his agent couldn't get the episode yanked.

(If you don't have time to watch the almost unwatchable beating, here's the gist: Andy Richter, the comic from The Tonight Show, utterly thrashes him. It's so bad, Wolf ends up with -$4600, and Trebek has to chuck him a lifeline. Fast forward to 7:02 for the embarrassing conclusion, though kudos to Richter for picking up $68000 for a children's hospital).

One Way Of Looking At It

The disgrace that is modern journalism bleats its horn again. The Washington Post:

What happened next was a scandal that has shaken ACORN to its core. O'Keefe and Giles secretly videoed ACORN workers in the District, Brooklyn and Baltimore as they coached the secret filmmakers on how to evade taxes and misrepresent the nature of their business enterprise to get into a home.

In the wake of a public outcry over Giles and O'Keefe's videos, which went viral on YouTube and conservative Web sites last week, Congress has taken action. Thursday the House voted 345 to 75 to defund the organization, handing conservative Republicans a major victory. They have long seen the liberal group -- which offers housing and other services, including voter registration, to the poor -- as a shady operation devoted to electing liberals and siphoning off taxpayer money for a permanent underclass.

Everything these days is framed as "blank" and "conservative." If a couple of liberal filmmakers had made a similar video, the first sentence of that second paragraph would read: In the wake of a public outcry over Giles and O'Keefe's videos, which went viral on YouTube and [the web] last week...

The hosannas about offering housing and "other services" to the poor is a laugh. Other services being advice on tax evasion and how to import child prostitutes from overseas. Great.

So far, four ACORN offices have been exposed coast to coast, and five ACORN staffers have been canned.

Other than that, nothing to see here, folks.

Good thing the videos went viral, otherwise you wouldn't have heard a word about it. As Jon Stewart said, he's embarrassed these two amateurs outscooped him and he's only pretending to be a journalist.

Aren't they all.

Get The Net. A Sports Guy Thinks He's A Journalist Again (II)

Uh-oh. Another sports "journalist" thinks he's a journalist.

Mike Lupica used to appear on ESPN to talk like a know-it-all and come off like same. For all I know, he still does. But in this piece for the NY Daily News he decides to go deep, then get outraged:

Across from the World Trade Center site there were more flowers than usual outside Engine 10, Ladder 10, the legendary New York firehouse known as Ten House. There are always more flowers, and signs, and photographs and flags, when there is another anniversary of Sept. 11.

OK. Good start. But wait...

We promised ourselves we were going to be a better city and a better country because of what happened. We told ourselves that we knew what really mattered now. In the aftermath of the worst day the city and the country had known, we promised to find the best in ourselves, and in each other.

And on this most recent anniversary of Sept. 11, the country seems as full of hate and noise as it has ever been. This is an America where Rep. Joe Wilson, whoever he is, thinks he can call the President of the United States a liar, Wilson talking to the President the way he would the help, or some waiter who was supposed to bring him another drink.

Ah, get bent. Screaming about politics has been going on forever. It took a break for a few weeks after 9/11, and then it came back. Did anyone think it wouldn't?

Human being are a political animal. We like to scream about politics, and sometimes we say outrageous things. Lupica's only upset because after a half-dozen years of Bush being called Hitler, it's now his guy that's getting yelled at.

There's a danger in sarcasm. You need to be good at it or you look kind of stupid. Lupica's words, with my immediate thoughts: "This is an America where Rep. Joe Wilson, whoever he is [you just said who he is], thinks he can call the President of the United States a liar [he doesn't think he can - he can, and he did], Wilson talking to the President the way he would the help [Mike would know?], or some waiter who was supposed to bring him another drink [so that's how you're supposed to ask waitresses for another round - you yell "Liar!"]."

Sports "journalists" are good for a laugh. In this case I got a double dip: amusing sanctinomy with a side dish of bad metaphor.

CNN Screws Up. Blames Everybody Else.

The righteous indignation in this piece from CNN is a joke. They got caught reporting a story that wasn't a story, and boy are they angry:



I agree with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: "Before we report things like this, checking would be good," Gibbs said.

Responding directly to a CNN reporter's question about whether the public should have been notified about a training exercise, Gibbs was harshly sarcastic: "If anybody was unnecessarily alarmed based on erroneous reporting that denoted that shots had been fired, I think everybody is apologetic about that."

When another journalist noted that the Coast Guard was holding a news conference to take questions on the morning's events, Gibbs jabbed: "Hopefully CNN will go."

I've seen some pieces asking why the Coast Guard would hold such an exercise on the anniverary of 9/11. Oh, I don't know, maybe because it's a Friday. Maybe they were due for a refresher. Maybe they just felt like it. Point is, it's good to have the military work on their training no matter what day of the week it is. The only reason this story made the news is because CNN reported that shots had been fired - and they hadn't.

I Dub Thee, Therefore Thou Art

Vis-a-vis the Obama/Joker poster, an LA Weekly guy has this to say:

To be honest, though, I do believe the poster appeals to people who see in it a validation of their own racial prejudices, even if they can't acknowledge them. That my short post hit such a deep, raw nerve clearly shows that race was very much part of the illustration's attraction.

Got it. If one were to draw a Telly Tubby, and I were to call that person a child molestor, his angry reaction to my charge would prove beyond all doubt that he is a child molestor.

Reading minds is just so easy.

Quite an Opening Sentence

Why blogs can be tiresome:

It could be a rallying cry for the millions of Glenn Beck and Hannity viewers, FreeRepublic readers, and other subnormal so-called citizens who, by dint of their sponge-like soaking up of right-wing propaganda, their latent paranoia and racism, and their predisposal towards being easily led, have found themselves waving little placards and screaming at dozens of health care reform meetings across the country.

Outrageous Outrage

An absolute beauty of a statement from Eliot Spitzer's lawyer. Spitzer was the New York governor who got busted sleeping with a high price hooker, forcing his resignation:

In March, we told you about a high-end escort who claimed that former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer had gotten overly aggressive during some kinky role-play (a charge Spitzer's lawyer called "outrageous and defamatory").

Cheating on your wife with a hooker while serving as governor? A mistake. Getting kinky? Outrageous lies!

"Bound and Gagged, Given Talking Points"

Another beauty from The Onion:


Human Rights Group Campaigns To End Use Of Child Politicians In Africa

Fade to Black - Michael Jackson

When I was a kid, I loved Michael Jackson. Before his descent into madness, me and my friends thought he was not just the King of Pop, but the King of Everything.

I have a few very distinct memories of Jackson back in the day: me, Phil, and Sean, choreographing a routine to Billy Jean for the elementary school play. I think I remember rousing applause. Then there was me, Timmy, and Sandy choreographing more than a dozen routines in Timmy and Sandy's backyard. We were playing "music video," complete with a director (Tim), choreographer (all three of us), and an audience (Sandy's dog and - for thirty seconds - Sandy's older brother).

We didn't have a malt shop when I was kid. Instead we had a variety store that held two video games. We used to go there, hang out, and play video games all the time. There was this one guy who was the best video game player in town. He was a few years older than me, had a beard, wore a leather jacket and ripped jeans, sported an earring, drove a dented Camaro, and looked mean. His last name was Roc and it wasn't made up. He scared the hell out of me. One time I was watching him play Galaga or Pac Man and we got to talking about music. He told me, "You know who my favourite entertainer is? I bet you'll never be able to guess."

I tried the usual skid suspects ("skids" were people with long hair that listened to heavy metal; I don't know if they're still called that): Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Judas Priest, so forth. He said, "Nope. My favourite entertainer is Michael Jackson."

I was floored. This was heavy stuff. Not only did he like Michael Jackson, but he was willing to admit that he liked Michael Jackson. To give you an idea of why this was a big deal, fast forward a few months. I was hanging out in the smoker's pit of the high school. Someone brought up Roc. I was stupid enough to say that Roc's favourite entertainer was Michael Jackson. One skid girl told me that Roc was going to kick my ass for saying that, and another guy threatened to do it himself. For a week I walked around wondering when Roc was going to descend and beat me to a pulp. Never happened. That's character.

It occurs to me now that I think that was the first time I heard someone described as an "entertainer" in the true sense of the word. Roc had brains. He knew the difference between heavy metal entertaining and pop entertaining, but he knew that they were both entertainment. I wonder if Roc became a critic.

One other childhood memory: Sandy and Timmy were the first kids in the neighbourhood that had a copy of the Thriller video. I waited and waited for them to invite me over to see it. But, like kids with a pool, they knew they had a trump card. They would mention the video now and then, or talk about their favourite parts, and I would be left standing there, wishing.

Two or three weeks went by. I wished and I wished. This was in the days before 34505 channels on TV, and the only showbiz show was Entertainment Tonight. So I had probably seen only three or four Thriller previews and commercials, leaving the thing a big mystery rolling around in my head. I wanted to see it so damn bad.

Finally they showed me the video. They sat on the couch and feigned boredom while I watched in wide eyed wonder. It scared me. It thrilled me. I loved it.

Everybody did. Anyone who said that they didn't like Thriller was a liar. And Roc was right: Jackson was a great entertainer.

I lost touch with Jackson and his music after that. Black or White was the last song I really paid attention to, and that one only because an English teacher wanted to dissect it during a writing class. Jackson had begun to turn weird. Freaky weird.

Years later I was watching a Michael Jackson concert on DVD. I had wandered into a girl's room and she and her friends were loving it. I didn't get it. He was a freak. His face was a mask, his body a stick. He looked ill. While watching the video I made some comment that he looked like a freak. I got kicked out of the room. So Jackson still had it, but he didn't have me.

It takes a lot to overcome child molestation charges. Jackson settled out of court with a teenage boy to the tune of millions, but people still loved him. So who's more weird? The fans that were ready to line up for his "comeback tour," or Jackson? American Idol recently had a "Michael Jackson night," where the singers had to perform Michael Jackson songs. You kept hearing the word "legend," as in, "Michael Jackson's a legend, so it was hard to pull that song off."

Legend? Really? I don't think so. Not anymore. If his career had ended at Thriller, his legendary status would be undeniable. Instead, I think his legacy will be one of a strange celebrity that couldn't handle it. Endings mean more than beginnings. Jackson's ending sucks. A man that liked to sleep with teenage boys, wear surgical masks everywhere he went, and had his face chopped into something unrecognizable to a mother. He didn't release any studio albums in the last eight years, leaving the public to judge him not by his music, but by what he did with his life. Over the past decade, the music stores have been flooded with Jackson "greatest hits" albums, the last of which was the "Celebrating 25 Years of Thriller." Man how the time flies. 25 years since he looked normal. 25 years since I thought he ruled the world.

The old line says that poor people are crazy, rich people are eccentric. Jackson certainly proved that. If he had been a door-to-door salesman, nobody would have wanted to be within 100 yards of him. But he was a celebrity, so dangling babies from windows and sleeping with boys wasn't such a big deal.

Weird. That will be Jackson's legacy. I'd say it's sad, but it's not. Again, if a door-to-door salesman acted the way Jackson did in the latter part of his life, you'd shed no tears for him. So I guess I'll give you a very slight pass if you say, "It's about the music," but you won't get much from me if you say it's about the man. Or what was left of him.

The Best Show On TV

All right, so that's not a hard honor to win. But still...

The wreck at 4:50 makes my highlight reel every time.

Great Line

That creepy Harper's Island show was on in the background and I heard the line of the year:

"Yeah. The bastard left me in here with a rotting corpse."

Beauty.

Bending to Vick

The sports shows are slowly leaning towards a reinstatement of Michael Vick.

He was released from prison a couple of weeks ago and has given no press appearances, but the sycophants that make up the sports media are already bending. Funny, that. He doesn't even have to say "whoops" or "prison sucks," and already they're kneeling.

On Fan 590 I heard a DJ say, "I'm a dog lover, but..." He went on to ask his listeners if they didn't think that everyone deserved a second chance. A man called in to say Vick should be banned from life let alone football. The DJ repeated that he was a dog lover - "I've had my dog for 17 years and I'm quite attached to him" - and then used the old magic word: "but."

Vick's a scumbag, but...Vick's a criminal, but...

This afternoon on another radio show, I head two DJs interviewing a guy from Sports Illustrated. They asked him if Vick might find a place in the NFL. The SI guy demurred, unsure of anything, but then asked if Vick might find a place in the CFL. The DJs told him that it depended if Vick was suspended from the NFL, since the CFL now recognizes suspensions in any other football league (read: the NFL). So the CFL gambit is a non-starter as far as Vick is concerned, but doesn't it speak volumes that the three men were even discussing it?

Sports "journalists" have no shame. None. They'll forgive anything, no matter how immoral, to kiss a professional athlete's ass. Here's what I had to say about the Vick dog killings a while back. It pertains to the asinine "second chance" comments that sports "journalists" trot out whenever they need to give an athlete a moral makeover:

Remember that this was going on at his kennel, not in some parking lot on the outskirts of town. Vick wasn’t "caught up" in anything. He was chiefly responsible for it. The dead dogs are buried on his property. The kennel, incidentally, was bought by Vick in 2001 for a little over $34000. With a flair for prophesy, these clowns named it Bad Newz Kennels.

The sycophantic sports writers are in quite a dilemma over this. Dog beats athlete for America’s heart every time, and the sports writers are in a pickle. They are, after all, writers, not reporters. There is no such thing as a sports reporter. Like me, emotions run their version of typing. They have steadfastly refused to investigate steroids in baseball (have you seen Jason Grimsley’s name lately?), or football. While Barry Bonds cheats his way past Henry Aaron, the sports writers go whistling through the locker room as if nothing’s amiss. Now they have a problem: America likes dogs.

But sports journalists like players.

Let's read again what Michael Vick did to wind up in the joint:

In the most disturbing account yet of Michael Vick's dogfighting operation, a federal investigative report details how the disgraced athlete killed pit bulls by hanging them from a nylon cord nailed to a tree and drowned others in a five gallon bucket of water...Purnell Peace, who was convicted along with Vick, told federal agents how he, Vick, and a third man had to drown one dog after it did not die when they tried to hang the animal. After Vick agreed last year to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge, he was interviewed by federal agents and claimed that he "never actually killed a dog," though he admitted watching his friends hang, shoot, and electrocute pit bulls. But after failing an October 2007 FBI polygraph test "as it related to the killings of the dogs," Vick recanted his denial and "admitted taking part in the actual hanging of the dogs."

The "second chance" philosophy as it applies to Vick is an obscene lie. Second chances are reserved for people who do something once, regret it, pay for it, and get on with their lives. If Vick had wandered into a room, seen a dog fight for the first time in his life, and been caught there, I would be all in favour of a second chance. But that's not what happened. Instead, he bought a kennel for the purpose of setting these dogs on each other. He watched them be electrocuted. He saw others shot. Some he hanged with a nylon cord. One that we know of he helped drown in a barrel. He watched small dogs get used as "practice" for the fight dogs. Then he and his friends buried the bodies on his property.

Vick has had a hundred chances to change his ways. The only reason he didn't get to 101 is because he got caught and put in prison.

Former QB Jim Kelly was on the radio the other day and said that he would leave it up to the NFL to decide Vick's fate, but in no way would Kelly want Vick to be a member of the Buffalo Bills. Other teams should feel the same way and say so.

The NFL needs to decide if it is a truly a "league," and what kind of league it wants to be. If they allow Vick back onto an NFL football field, they will truly be the National Felony League. Their reputation won't be fit for dogs.

Hey, Would You Like To Talk About Singing For Our Legendary Rock Band?

“Amongst all that furor, there wasn’t really a quiet moment to talk,” May tells Rolling Stone in an e-mail interview. “But [drummer Roger Taylor] and I are definitely hoping to have a meaningful conversation with him at some point. It’s not like we, as Queen, would rush into coalescing with another singer just like that. It isn’t that easy. But I’d certainly like to work with Adam. That is one amazing instrument he has there.”

That's Brian May, Queen guitarist and frontman, talking about American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert.

Let's say you're sitting around in your living room one day and say, "You know, I think I'll try out for this American Idol thing." Six months later the guitarist of Queen is pondering whether or not to give you a job?

Not bad, buddy.

Bedside Manners

New York Times: That’s what Janice Langbehn, a social worker in Lacey, Wash., says she experienced when her partner of 18 years, Lisa Pond, collapsed with an aneurysm during a Florida vacation and was taken to a Miami trauma center. She died there, at age 39, as Ms. Langbehn tried in vain to persuade hospital officials to let her visit, along with the couple’s adopted children.

“I have this deep sense of failure for not being at Lisa’s bedside when she died,” Ms. Langbehn said. “How I get over that I don’t know, or if I ever do.”

The case, now the subject of a federal lawsuit in Florida, is being watched by gay rights groups, which say same-sex partners often report being excluded from a patient’s room because they aren’t “real” family members.

I don't look at this as a gay rights story. I look at it as a hospital-staffs-are-stupid story.

Hospitals are like any other bureaucracy. If you've been in one lately, then you know that it isn't a place where the sick are cared for. They're processed.

TV shows like Grey's Anatomy and House have greatly reinforced the idea that once you become injured or ill, you are a piece of meat with no rights. You will be tended to by wise cracking doctors who discuss their sex lives while your heart is exposed to the open air. Worrying thought: is it all bogus, or have the writers done their homework and art is imitating life?

House in particular is teaching aspiring physicians that their problems are far more pressing than a patient's. If you watch an episode of House (and I often do; I like the show) then you will see that every episode is simply a lengthy experiment on a hapless extra. Patient ill? Try this drug. Still ill? Open up his brain. Still ill? Try another drug. Dying? Zap him with the paddles. Still ill? Give him yet another drug, until, ta-da! He's all better. The show never goes into the pain of the patient. In fact, the stars rarely speak the patient's name. The patient only survives because House and his team have stumbled upon the right drug to cure him before their previous fifteen treatments did him in.

I remember watching one Grey's Anatomy episode that really drove the point home: the interns were delighted to find a bunch of dead bodies in the morgue so they could practice on them in every Dr. Mengele way possible. After two episodes of chopping dead people to bits, one of the stars finally caught them and gave a short speech on how upset she was. These were people, didn't they see? Nice try. The next episode, back to yukking it up over a man's squashed face.

I've probably channelled him too often, but Warhol was right: celebrities not only teach us how to behave, but more importantly how to look while behaving. When I split my finger open a few weeks ago, I went to get stitches. They broke out the ampules of freezing liquid, the needles, and the thread. Then the nurse told me that Grey's Anatomy was her favorite TV show.

It was not a comforting statement.

Look! I Care! I Care! I Really Do!

"Journalist" Shepherd Smith has decided that being on the internet absolves him of watching his mouth.

What a colossal loser this windbag is. Lemme guess: failed actor?

If a terrorist took this guy's hair gel hostage, he'd have the CIA beat it out of him in nothing flat.

Will the Piñata

Wow. George Will wrote a silly little column about hating jeans and denim and...the whole right wing blogsphere fell on his head.

I read the piece yesterday and thought, "Ah, George, get over it." It was an amusing little piece written by a guy who doesn't wear denim. Kinda funny, kinda not, on my with my day. I guess I didn't understand what an earth shattering column this really was.

Hot Air is especially full of sour grapes, as one of their bloggers spends an entire blog (complete with updates) pointing out that jeans are great and Will is a goof. Michelle Malkin piles on, along with a bunch of other bloggers. Ed Morrissey says, "Did I miss a memo? Have we solved all of the world’s problems? This doesn’t even make for an interesting blog post, let alone a nationally-syndicated column from an erudite political commentator."

Get bent, loser.

I've taken a swipe at Will before over political stuff, but going after a writer because of a one-off subject is lame. Will can write whatever he wants. Maybe he was tired of the politics and was just sitting around thinking of a story, saw someone in jeans and said, "You know. I never liked jeans." And wrote something.

The column's silly, and the last line shows that Will is goofing around. This is way over the heads of the blogosphere. Upset at Will ever since his betrayal during the McCain campaign, they are determined to pay him back. But by making fun of him for not wearing jeans? News flash: George Will has been wearing bow ties on TV his entire life. Did you expect him to like jeans?

A few weeks back Will wrote about the Arizona/Mexico border. A couple of weeks ago he wrote about the US constitution. A week ago he wrote about baseball. Yesterday he wrote about denim. Who cares?

Morrissey's "miss a memo" and "erudite" drivel smacks of an intellectual alert. Morrissey would never know this, but the dirty little secret about writers is that they write. Bloggers blog. The difference between them is that writers sometimes write about something else once in a while just for the hell of it. Bloggers are a broken record.

In Canada, I've seen this kind of stuff before. It's usually about Mark Steyn and how he used to be a DJ, so he has no business being in the writing trade. Whatever. The internet opened up a wide world of information, but it also gave every jealous hack with a keyboard a chance to tell writers how to write. Tough luck. Maybe Will or Steyn's next column should be about where the slogan "eat me" came from.

The Artist's "Duty"

Via Steyn, via Scaramouche, quoting the Montreal Gazette:

Editorial cartoonists have a duty...

And that's where I stop reading.

I find nothing more insipid than anyone telling artists (whether they be cartoonists, painters, sculptors, writers, film directors, so forth) what their "duty" is.

There are no guidelines for art, and there are no "duties" artists need follow. None. Catching hell for written libel is one thing, doing your "duty" as an artist is quite another. When someone says that an artist has a duty to do something, they mean they wish artists would shut up and do things their way.

Here's what I had to say a couple of weeks back when Kathleen Parker pulled the same stunt. It bears repeating:

2) Who is Kathleen Parker to tell cartoonists what they have to be aware of? There's only two things cartoonists need to know: the paper in front of them, and the pen in their hand.

A painter's only duty is to paint. A writer's only duty is to write. A cartoonist's only duty is to draw. A filmmaker's only duty is to roll camera. All of those duties are to themselves. If they go broke, then they didn't find an audience. Maybe they'll take it up as a hobby. But no one should tell them which parts of life are off limits.


Blake's The Blasphemer.

Tapper Again

A recent highlight from Jake Tapper over at ABC, a journalist who might just take the quotation marks from around the word "journalist."

Tapper in Political Punch: Then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., one year ago this week, swooped in from the campaign trail to -- along with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- vote for an amendment to impose a one-year moratorium on earmarks for fiscal year 2009...Today, of course, President Obama will sign into law more than 8,000 earmarks for FY 2009, part of the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.