Michael Jackson is still dead and his children are in his mother’s custody. Congress is in recess. So far, no more GOP family values scandals. The beer summit concluded. What is there to report about?
Hmmmmmmm.
Nah, not those. Too heavy. Berlusconi’s love and sex scandal!! Ahaa. G-d bless Italy.
Just like Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, the Second 100 Days is a creation of the 24-hour news RE-cycle.
The challenges we face as a nation cannot be meaningfully calibrated to a 100-day meter. Life is not a 2 hour action movie, during which the hero and heroine vanquish the menacing threat to our planet and have a steamy sex scene to celebrate a hard day’s work of keeping us safe.
Pundits think that the citizens of our great country don’t have the attention span to consider the issues. That we can only think in sound bites. That scare tactics will taint our thinking. That we believe that a government can plausibly be measured in 100-day increments. That the media is keeping government honest as opposed to creating high ratings.
I know we are smarter.
Obama hit the BIG KUMBAYA with Officer Crowley and Professor Gates.
Even those commentators who rail against Obama actually complimented him. I don’t really know how I feel about it because the president cannot settle every dispute and he is not the Referee-In-Chief. So, maybe it was a teachable moment in do-it-yourself mediation, preferably with some form of social lubricant or liquid confidence.
So, here is the lesson. IT WASN’T ABOUT OBAMA. It is about two people who need and WANT a forum to work things out. And that makes Officer Crowley and Professor Gates the true stars of this summit. This was a racially/socially/politically charged event and the two in the middle reached across the divide and set an example for a nation.
So, in that vein, Rosie O’Donnell made an overture to the Donald, which he turned down in a way in his typical fashion. He was offensive. Rosie, nice gesture, but don’t wait for Donald. He doesn’t have the right stuff.
Barack, the next time you have people over on the patio, don’t trudge through my veggie garden, again. Washington is toxic enough.
Of all the pictures of MJ that could be on the Campbell Brown/AC 360 background wall, why do they choose one in which Michael Jackson looks like Diana Ross? They don’t use that picture when they want an up-close picture — usually they use the ones in which he has the progressively scarier noses.
G-d bless air conditioning.
This from my beloved partner of ten years:
I thought I would contribute this blog-worthy moment to your morning. So I am sitting on a crowded #1 train and a tall guy – maybe late twenties – sits down next to me. He’s nicely dressed – expensive shirt, good watch etc. I thought he might be foreign ’cause of the haircut. He proceeds to whip out his keychain and starts to clip his fingernails. I leaned over and said to him in a perfectly reasonable voice – “I’m afraid you can’t do that here – it’s unacceptable. You need to use a bathroom or do it over a garbage can. This is a public place.” The whole time – I was perfectly calm and matter of fact. He stopped. He got out a few stops later. One small victory for civility on NYC subways!
I love her.
Ann Coulter, please go back under the rock where you’ve been hiding. On Larry King just now, your claim that racial profiling is a hoax is based on two unfortunate episodes of two black kids trying to avoid punishment by saying they were assaulted by whites. Ok, setting aside the history of whites falsely accusing non-whites of assault, etc., what you’ve said has nothing to do with racial profiling. What irks me the most about you is that you make no sense. I am guessing that you can’t the argument on the merits, on facts and on logic. So, instead you deflect and divert attention from these shortcomings.
But, this is America, Ann, so talk. I just turned off the TV. But you caused me to rant and so you’ve won — for now. I am the ultimate winner, because I will never have to wake up and be Ann Coulter. That is your punishment.
I don’t drink beer. After four years of smelling mung beer in fraternity basements in college, the mere suggestion of beer makes my nose hair curl.
Have a beer with the President? You bet. What, my strong aversion to beer? Nah, dude. If that is my ticket to have a sit down with the most powerful man in the nation (who happens to have the cutest ears in the nation), then, what me, an anti-beerist? I’d even drink a rusty can of Rheingold circa 1969 if it gets me on the patio in the Rose Garden.
So, as I see it, here is how I need to orchestrate my 45 minutes with the Big Guy. I have to do something outrageous that actually sparks outrage. (I do outrageous stuff all the time, but no one seems to care.) It has to threaten the kumbaya veneer of society in a menacing, yet ultimately not physically harmful, way. Then it has to be on the 24-hour news RE-cycle, just in time for a Presidential press conference where the President is tired and talking about really important things critical to the nation’s future. Then, with seconds to go before he gets to leave the press room, have his make-up washed off and kick back with Michelle, a friend with press credentials has to ask about my incident. Hopefully, he will be annoyed and the incident will touch a chord in him and he will have an authentic, I-am-human-and-I-have-unscripted-opinions moment. POUNCE!! I got my beer.
So, here is my checklist to close this deal:
In the New York Times, there is an article about an author who wrote a book about nothing much. I hope it is free.