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Caveat lector
 | RANKS OF THE DISAPPEARED! Bungled methodology lays our work low. Prepare for a pithy DAILY HOWLER! |
TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2003
THERE’S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING: Due to bungled methodology, we’ve decided to take today’s main story down. Due to incomparable methodology, we’re leaving today’s “Update” up.
This may be why people take vacations in July. Tomorrow, O’Reilly and Pfaff.
TOMORROW: O’Reilly got hot about William Pfaff. But where was the fairness and balance?
The Daily update
WHAT FOOLS THESE “STRATEGISTS” BE: On last night’s show, standard clowning prevailed. Sean Hannity asked a typical question about his favorite target, Hillary Clinton. Clinton “wants this inquiry to go forward of whether or not the administration hyped the issue of weapons of mass destruction, even though George Bush used the exact same arguments that her husband used when he leveled the attack on Iraq in 1998.” Al Haig had a brilliant response:
HAIG: I think she would be better off tending her own knitting and the problems of the people of New York. God knows they have enough.Clinton should tend to her knitting! Later in the show, “Republican strategist” Pete Snyder shared his thoughts about Clinton’s book tour:
SNYDER: I’ve got to tell you, you know, I’m a big Hillary fan right now. I think there is no other candidate out there on the Democratic side that’s in touch with the liberal base like she is and that’s why she’s just dwarfing every other single candidate running this year. The 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign is in full effect. I like to call this whole book tour “The Blonde Ambition Tour.”So let’s review what we’ve learned in the last two weeks. Gays having sex leads to bestiality (George Will). Asian-American students are “Sumatran gibbons” (Michelle Malkin). Ann Coulter says that Arabs smell to please the people who read her book. And Senator Clinton is just a blonde who needs to get back to her knitting! None of this has a thing to do with the actual worth of conservative principles. But half-witted elements have taken control of the American conservative movement. They make a joke of the discourse every night. We congratulate Andrew Sullivan for dropping a dime on hate-merchant Coulter. But when will conservatives make it clear that these half-witted elements must exit their movement? When will cons tell other cons to stop tossing feed to the herd?
One final point from last night’s show. Reciting one of his standard spin-points, Hannity marveled to think that—even after Kathleen Willey!—Hillary Clinton could have doubted Lewinsky. But Kathleen Willey was denounced as a liar by Independent Counsel Robert Ray. She was almost prosecuted for her conduct, Ray said. Hillary Clinton knows that full well—and so, of course, does Sean Hannity. But Hannity knows something else too. He knows that the Ray Report was disappeared, just as Wilson is now disappearing. (Two U.S. newspapers—two!—reported what Ray said about Willey.) For that reason, he knows that he can simply fake this point. Our question: When will conservatives rise and say that the Hannities have to be disappeared?
SAVAGE FOR PRESIDENT: Our discourse has been mightily eroded as crackpot cons have been afforded respect. Today, even as the AP reports the firing of crackpot pseudo-conservative Michael Savage, how does the tongue-tied service describe him? Savage is “brash” and “tough-talking,” the AP says.