Ticked at the Post? Fond of English? Read this

[Rose Siding]

Wonkette's DCEIVER takes a Wolcott-ishly good run at today's wretched suck up:

The Year in Accidental Tourism

With a few inches of petroleum jelly lathered on their critical lens and a couple tumblers filled with the crystal waters of the River Lethe by their sides, Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei perfect the art of the pulled punch in their look back at the past year of the Bush Presidency. The resulting article is a piece of gorgeous goggle-eyed wonderment that allows the reader to feel the visceral immediacy of the unexpected descent from a turnip truck.

There's so much to love in the article it's hard to pick a favorite highlight. For instance, the pair say that one of the lessons learned this year is: "Overarching initiatives such as restructuring Social Security are unworkable in a time of war." Yeah, or: Unworkable solutions to Social Security are unworkable at any time whatsoever.

We also love their post-election analysis: "Bush and Rove sketched out an ambitious agenda to avoid the traditional pitfalls of second-term presidents. They settled on four domestic priorities for 2005: remaking Social Security, revising the tax code, cracking down on court-clogging litigation and easing immigration rules." Wha? Three of those four initiatives -- Social Security, the tax code, and immigration -- are the very definition of pitfall! Bush and Rove weren't trying to avoid pitfalls, they were running headlong into them hoping that their mandate was going to imbue them with the power of a hundred Tony Hawks!

They go on to describe how Bush's summer was consumed with the furor over the Harriet Miers nomination (Yeah. Gosh. How'd that happen?) and, most fascinatingly of all, spare a moment of pity over the way Hurricane Katrina brought Bush's vacation "to an abrupt halt." Funny: we don't remember the end of that vacation being quite so abrupt. There are probably people who could speak with considerably more authority on the concept of abruptness and Hurricane Katrina, but, in Baker and VandeHei's defense, bloated corpses floating face down in sewage are notoriously hard to interview.— DCEIVER

[kay1864]

1. Oh that's good. n/t

[Missy Vixen]

2. Beautiful

>In Baker and VandeHei's defense, bloated corpses floating face down in sewage are notoriously hard to interview.<

If there was a description of "the year that was," this is it. I only wish I had written it!

Julie

[Rose Siding]

3. Yeah, that's good-

One small, positive side effect of today's political landscape, along with more people becoming aware that there is a political landscape, is the emerging tramp art-like use of language as snark.

The resulting article is a piece of gorgeous goggle-eyed wonderment that allows the reader to feel the visceral immediacy of the unexpected descent from a turnip truck.

Mark Twain and Will Rogers would have blogged.

[Batgirl]

4. you're right

that is Wolcott-ishly good.

[Batgirl]

5. more good snark

from Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, describing Bush speechifying during his Victory Tour:
"The point is obvious; Bush's audience was like a guest list for a Monster's Ball of the military-industrial establishment. And even in this crowd full of corporate lawyers, investment bankers, weapons makers, ex-spooks and, for Christ's sake, lobbyists, the president of the United States couldn't cook up more than two tepid applause lines for his Iraq policy -- and one of those was because he was finishing up and, one guesses, freeing the audience to go call their brokers.

God bless George Bush. The Middle East is in flames, and how does he answer the call? He rolls up to the side entrance of a four-star Washington hotel, slips unobserved into a select gathering of the richest fatheads in his dad's Rolodex, spends a few tortured minutes exposing his half-assed policies like a campus flasher and then ducks back into his rabbit hole while he waits for his next speech to be written by paid liars.

If that isn't leadership, what is?"

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8952459?rnd=1135881569953&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872

[Gabi Hayes]

6. he's hard to beat, he is.....I'm reading Spanking the Monkey right now.

compilation of his columns for NY Press/Nation/RS during the last election theft

he's really brutal on the MSM, as well as most dems, too

well worth reading, including a piece on the press' celebratory/flagellative coverage of dumbo's Baghdade turkey visit two years ago. he was just eviscerative toward those who went on the plane, especially Mike Allen

[TahitiNut]

7. "...the visceral immediacy of the unexpected descent from a turnip truck."

Oh! How I love the erudite conversion of a cliche! That's beautiful! Dorothy Parker would love it.


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Kurovski]

8. A kick in honor of the well-turned phrase.