GREETINGS FROM THE IDIOCRACY! KO’s report may have been the dumbest thing we’ve ever seen on cable: // link // print // previous // next //

The kind of crap sandwich they serve: It’s amazing how much crap-on-a-bun you get served on “progressive” cable. Last night, Rachel Maddow was still pretending that the minor delay in Tammy Duckworth’s confirmation has been “inexplicable.” In fact, the delay hasn’t been “inexplicable” at all; the delay has been explained to everyone on earth, except to those condemned to watch Maddow’s disingenuous program. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 4/15/09.

But then, we liberal rubes are constantly fed reinvented stories on these faux programs. For an especially stupid example, consider the tale David Shuster told while guest-hosting on Monday night’s Countdown.

Shuster began his career in DC chasing Democrats through the streets, loudly shouting questions at them for his pay-masters at Fox. (During the Clinton impeachment.) Since 2002, he’s been paid by a different corporation—and he’s now being asked to serve comfort food to us libs. On Monday night, one part of the comfort he gave began with this declaration:

SHUSTER (4/13/09): But first, because they may be gone but their deeds outlive them, the headlines lingering from the previous administration’s fifty running scandals. Still Bushed!

Wow! Even more running scandals! And just like that, we got our first case: “Gated community-gate!” It was yet another case of Bush’s endless hypocrisy:

SHUSTER (continuing directly): Number three, “Gated community-gate.” While he was president, Mr. Bush dismissed the notion that he lived in a bubble, insulated from people and concepts that might challenge him. Approximately one month after he left office, one of his new neighbors asked whether she could bring a group of visitors by. She was told no the first and second time, the Washington Post reports....

Bastard! For our money, Shuster could have stopped right there; we’d have been happy with just this tale of Bush’s overpowering gall. But Shuster continued to soldier forward! Just get a load of his punch line—and enjoy the pleasing snark at the end:

SHUSTER (continuing directly): After the third time, she was told yes, but only 30 people could enter the Bush’s street. A raffle would pick two of the visitors who could actually approach the Bush door. The visitors were Cub Scouts! The oldest of them was 11. The goal was to collect canned goods for a food drive.Countdown is happy to report the former president survived the encounter.

Bastard! Bush wouldn’t even receive Cub Scouts without a fight, David sweetly said.

This story, of course, was primally fake, like so much you see on Countdown. This report came from the Washington Post, Shuster said; indeed, the report had appeared that veryday, a minor part of this long profile by Eli Saslow. But uh-oh! Shuster had dropped a key part of the story! Can you spot the part of the tale GE’s “comfort man” left out?

SASLOW (4/13/09): [The Bushes’] 1.13-acre property—valued at about $2.4 million—is cocooned by 40 acres of private land and a trout-filled lake. Two oak trees shade the front yard. The Secret Service occupies a house next door. Entrance into the cul-de-sac is restricted by a barrier of orange cones, two police cruisers and four Secret Service agents who scan the perimeter with binoculars. The Bushes plan to install a permanent gate outside the cul-de-sac later this year.

Until then, some neighbors have decided to treat 10141 Daria Place as just another house in Preston Hollow, despite all indications otherwise. The day after the Bushes arrived, the local Cub Scout troop visited their cul-de-sac as part of its annual drive to collect canned food. The troop's supervising parent, Nancy Burke, drove over to Daria Place a few days in advance to ask the Secret Service for clearance.

Sorry, the agents said.

Burke stopped by twice more and received the same answer before finally winning approval from a scheduling aide in Bush's office.

Duh. The rejections had come from the Secret Service. The Cub Scouts finally got the OK when Burke, their supervising parent, went around the security team and asked Bush’s office itself.

Sad. The Secret Service had told the scouts no. Bush’s aide was the one who said yes. But so what? To make you feel good so you’d come back again, GE had to make a few “cuts.”

And frankly, so it routinely goes, again and again, when GE hands us rube libs our shows.

Yep. So it goes when hacks like Shuster treat you to some doctored palaver. As liberals, you get to hear strings of silly tales about the perfidy of those who aren’t like you. You feel good when you hear this doctored-up sh*t, and so you come back the next evening for more. This boost GE’s rating—and earnings. The suits are able to slip their cash right into David’s trousers.

This silly invention concerned George Bush. Last evening, Maddow extended her doctored tale about Duckworth. But then, these programs re routinely doctored—although the geratest problem this week has been their adoration of dumb.

Idiocracy used to be a film. If you read our main post today, you’ll see that we’re all now within it.

Special report: New Morning?

PART 3—GREETINGS FROM THE IDIOCRACY: Truly, it’s a bit hard to believe. But in eleven years of reviewing cable “news” program, we’re not sure we’ve ever seen anything quite this dumb.

Sadly, we refer to the work of two cable “progressives”—Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. For starters, consider the way Olbermann began his program last night.

For Countdown, it was the third straight night in which the show was built around strings of dick jokes. (On the Maddow Show, last night was the fifth). In theory, Olbermann is paid $5 million to do a cable “news” program. Last night, this is how he began the show. To watch the full segment, click here:

OLBERMANN (4/15/09): Good evening from New York.

It began with a handful of patriots echoing the Boston Tea Party, sending tea bags to individual politicians. Then they said, "Let’s tea-bag Congress. Let’s tea-bag the White House."

And today, in our fifth story on the countdown: After all the anticipation and build-up, the tea-bagging exploded all across America, pulling in several hundred tea-baggers in Washington who planned to dump a million tea bags in Lafayette Square only they forgot to get the permit. Officials prevented from doing so, even though they had promised to do their tea-bagging, quote, “on tarps and clean up afterwards,” according to the Washington Post. Quote, "They complied with the order but are still considering [pregnant pause] what to do with the load.”

For those of us who were in the know, “the load” referred to the gob of semen which leaves the penis in the act of sex. (The “anticipation and build-up” were a reference to the prelude to orgasm. Orgasm itself is referred to by the word “exploded.”) And omigod! As Olbermann continued, his endless dick jokes did too. We got jokes about Dick Armey—and a “dick army.” Words like “uprising” and “climax” were sprinkled through this defective man’s narrative.

Still, the clowning continued. A woman was shown, explaining that the site of one Tax Day event changed. “Of course, it is hard to change position right in the middle of a tea-bagging,” Olbermann said. For the record, the gentleman’s comments about “tea-bagging” refer to a particular sexual act, an act which has defined “progressive” news since Maddow, Olbermann’s fellow defective, started this nonsense last week:

WIKIPEDIA: Teabagging is a slang term for the act of a man placing his testicles in the mouth or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion as in irrumatio The practice vaguely resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea.

“Oddly, tea-baggers oppose stimulus, even the stimulus package,” this big dumb block of cheese soon said, extending a stunningly tired premise. (Defectives have tittered about the term “stimulus package” for several months now.) At one point, Olbermann even stooped so low as to show tape of a man who seemed to have a speech defect or a mental challenge. Here’s the way our “progressive” giant referred to this challenged man’s odd-sounding speech:

OLBERMANN: Well, obviously if he sounds like he’s got marbles in his mouth, that’s just the presence of the camera. But mostly, these tea-baggers claim high taxes have brought them to their knees...

Translating from “progressive” to human: This apparently speech-challenged man was speaking somewhat oddly because his mouth was full of semen. As recently as one week ago, it would have been extremely hard to believe that anyone would conduct himself this way on a cable “news” program.

It’s stunning to think that a major corporation (in this case, General Electric) would let an employee behave this way. (While other “progressives” accept it, of course.) But these examples are not what we meant when we said—see above—that Olbermann’s performance may have been the dumbest thing we’ve ever seen on cable. We were referring to what the host did after he showed the picture of the Florida State House, site of one of yesterday’s events—a tower-like building whose picture was shown because it resembles a penis.

The dumbest thing we’ve ever seen? In eleven years reviewing cable “news?” That would be the list this utter defective presented after he let his “progressive” viewers chuckle about the shape of that building. From this transcription, you still may not see how bizarre this really was:

OLBERMANN: In all seriousness, while the tea-baggers may have been whipped up by Fox News, maybe misinformed about tax policy, their fears are real, and we salute their turn-out today. Can we have the video of the rally in Tallahassee, in Florida? [pretending to wait]

No?

All right. Well, this is what the State House looked like there—the imposing sight that greeted slack-jawed tea-baggers there today. [photo of tall, tower-like office building]

In addition to Neil Cavuto in Sacramento, we had Hackensack, Dixon, Dickinson, thousand oaks, Brownwood, Greenwood, Friendswood, Walnut Creek, Little Rock, The Twin Cities, Twin Falls, Marble Falls, Hot Springs, Grand Rapids, Cedar Rapids, Rogue River, Grosse Point, Lansing, Bangor, Bend, South Bend, Piscataway and Peoria. Duncan, Arizona, Duncan, Oklahoma, Mansfield, Manchester, Bowling Green, Portsmouth, Mount Juliet, Mount Vernon, Tomball, Morehead City, Oak Harbor and finally Sag Harbor.

In the face of all that tea-bagging, the claim that this is not a movement is just not—you just can’t swallow it. It’s pure fallacy.

“You just can’t swallow it” is a reference to swallowing semen during oral sex. “Pure fallacy” was a play on “phallus,” the Latinate term for “penis.” “Slack-jawed” was used to suggest that the protesters had so much semen in their mouths that they couldn’t even keep their traps shut—a problem they seem to share with a certain defective himself.

But this still isn’t what we meant when we called this performance the dumbest we’ve ever seen on cable. What did we mean? We referred to the list of cities Olbermann posted to help us appreciate his vast, crackling humor. As he read the names of those cities (see above), this list appeared on our screen:

POSTED BY OLBERMANN:
Sacramento, CA
Hackensack, NJ
Dixon, IL
Dickinson, ND
Thousand Oaks, CA
Brownwood, TX
Greenwood, MS
Friendswood, TX
Walnut Creek, CA
Little Rock, AK
The Twin Cities, MN
Twin Falls, ID
Marble Falls, TX
Hot Springs, AK
Grand Rapids, MI
Cedar Rapids, IA
Rogue River, OR
Grosse Point, MI
Lansing, MI
Bangor, ME
Bend, OR
South Bend, IN
Piscataway, NJ
Peoria, IL
Duncan, AZ
Duncan, OK
Mansfield, OH
Manchester, NH
Bowling Green, KY
Portsmouth, NH
Mount Juliet, TN
Mount Vernon, WA
Tomball, TX
Morehead City, NC
Oak Harbor, WA
Sag Harbor, NY

Sacramento and Hackensack were chosen because they include the word “sack”—a slang term for the scrotum. Dixon and Dickinson were included because they contain the word “dicks.” (We joked about this the other day, calling Olbermann’s “shot.”) Brownwood, Greenwood and Friendswood all contain “wood,” a slang term for a man’s erect penis; Thousand Oaks was included for this same reason. Walnut Creek and Little Rock made Olbermann think of what’s found in a scrotum. (Tomball hit him that way too. So did Marble Falls.) But then, so did names like Twin Cities/Twin Falls. You see, the typical scrotum includes two testicles. This powerful recognition lies behind the invention of the week’s favorite term. (“Tea bags” have two sections, just like Olbermann’s scrotum.)

Beyond that, what does it mean to be a defective? Olbermann can’t hear of a town named “Mount Juliet” without picturing someone named Juliet being mounted. (In his mind, Vernon got mounted too. Piscataway contains the word “piss!”) And yes, this is the stunning waste product which is being served each night (by GE) as absolute state-of-the-art when it comes to “progressive” news programming.

We’ve been struck, for several years, by Olbermann’s unfortunate gender obsessions—in particular, by the way he insisted, night after night, for years, on mocking young blonde women. Quite literally, he never did this to young male athletes who were in the news for unfortunate conduct—knowing they might appear at his studio and place their jack-boots up past his sphincter. (Jack-boots! Yuk! Who needs that?) But until this week, it simply wouldn’t have entered our heads that any anchor, at any channel, would engage in conduct so astoundingly stupid. (Morehead City! Cue Beavis!) But as noted: This was the third straight night this “progressive” news program was built around long strings of dick jokes.

But then, consider Maddow’s performance on her own show Tuesday night.

For Maddow, Tuesday would be the fourth straight night of utterly juvenile dick jokes. (Last night’s program made five.) And so, a familiar dodge appeared. After treating us to a few quick dick jokes, Maddow pretended to explain why she’s been behaving this way: “I can’t help myself,” she said. Again, we ask our basic question: Has anyone on cable news ever been this disingenuous?

MADDOW (4/14/09): Here on Tea Bag Eve, one form of response to the great tea-bag gob-smack of 2009 is, of course, to laugh at it, even while trying to report on it, which is the prurient, juvenile approach that I admit I have taken over the past week. I can’t help myself.

Today, further illustration of why jerks like me can’t be president of the United States. President Obama, today, seriously addressed his critics, taking them on as if he has been able to discern within the tea-bag blizzard some legitimate concerns that require rebuttal. Unlike giggling TV hosts, he has identified points of concern that people may have with him and he logically walked through those concerns and gave his responses to them.

President Obama‘s speech today explained what he thinks is going on in the economy and why he thinks it‘s going on. He enunciated and justified his policies to respond to the crisis. In the process, he spelled out and answered the criticisms he has encountered from left, right and center—and, in the case of the tea-baggers, from over the top.

Why had she played the fool for the prior three nights? Why did she continue to play the fool in this passage? (She let us picture a big “gob” of semen hitting someone “smack” in the face! And omigod! When she said the criticisms of the “tea-baggers” came “from over the top,” she helped us picture them dropping their scrotums down on Obama’s face! So cool!) Why had Maddow been playing the fool? Because the “giggling” cable host can’t help it! She’s just a “jerk,” she now informed us—just a “giggling TV host!” She had taken a “prurient, juvenile approach,” she “admitted”—even as she continued it.

Sadly, this is becoming a standard feature of the Maddow Show. In this utterly bogus performance, “Sunday morning Rachel” appears, apologizing for the conduct of her “Saturday evening” alter ego. Her “admission,” of course, is utterly bogus—a juvenile way to have life both ways. As of last night, the prurient host has devoted five straight nights to long strings of “juvenile” dick jokes. On two of those nights, she has pretended that she is embarrassed by these conversations. On this third occasion, she pretends that she keeps doing these things because she can’t help herself.

But the news is a very important thing. A response to this nonsense writes itself:

Beyotch! If you can’t control the things you do, you need to get yourself off the air! Stop telling yourself that you’re a Rhodes Scholar. Go somewhere else. Get some help.

Olbermann’s outing last night may have been the dumbest performance we’ve even seen on cable. But then, if you really like your news dumb:

On Tuesday’s program, Maddow went on to attempt an analysis of Obama’s speech. Unfortunately, her work on the basic economic issues he had discussed was almost as dumb as her dick jokes. We’ll discuss that performance tomorrow. And we’ll discuss something else, something which may be more consequential: The open contempt these store-bought “progressives” display for average citizens.

Meanwhile, a wider perspective. All through the 1990s, liberals and progressives sat back and took it while Clinton, then Gore, were relentlessly savaged. (George Bush ended up in the White House.) Now, progressives sit back and take it again, as this pair of simpering chimps make a joke of “progressive” news programs.

For as long as we’ve been alive on this earth, sneering pseudos of this type have undermined progressive interests. Long ago, they helped elect Nixon. Rest assured: In their open contempt for average people, they’re hard at work on the project again.

Omigod! Did we say “hard?” To these chipmunks, nothing else matters.

TOMORROW—PART 4: A sneering Rhodes Scholar’s open contempt—and her hapless “analysis.”

NEXT WEEK—WHO ARE THESE GUYS? Borrowing language from “Butch” and the Kid, we start to examine the upper-class fools who create these pisspitiful programs. We’ll include the two wolfs—Bill and “Dick.”

It may just be a glitch: For the past two days, transcripts of the Maddow Show haven’t been posted on Nexis. (This includes the programs of April 14 and 15. Countdown continues to appear. So does Hardball.) This may just be a glitch, of course. But if we were shoveling loads of crap of the type this program has been shoveling, we might want to drop the evidence from permanent archives too.