Liberal Media Elite

So yesterday it came out that Palin’s email was hacked by the group that goes after Scientologists called “Anonymous.”  However rude and lowdown it is to hack into one’s email and spread it around is of little consequence now. I think it speaks more to a potential VP nominee that might have kept information in the Fort Knox that is Yahoo. 8 year-olds are probably a little more tech savvy then that.

The hackers also released a list of email subject lines.

These are the three I’m most interested in:

Talis Colberg is her Attorney General. Fek9wner is Mr. Palin. And Michael Nizich is her Chief of Staff.

It would be interesting to see what a good fiction writer or maybe the Coens could come up with with this cast of characters and the subjects of Confidential Ethics Matter, $$$ and Follow Up. I would bet it wouldn’t be too far from the truth.

For some time, I’ve held that it’s not Hillary that I object to, it’s the people around her. And A #1 slimebag on that list is Terry McAuliffe. I hold him personally responsible for the curb-stompings of the Democratic Party throughout the late 90’s and early parts of this century. (He was DNC chair, you know, the guy running the damn party). I am so glad he got the boot and Howard Dean is not filling his old post. And amazingly, Democrats are winning.

In recent weeks and months (since about South Carolina) Hillary has done much to erode whatever favorable picture of her I had. But it was the likes of Terry McAlbatross that initially turned me off to her. And I love it when my skepticism is validated.

Oh, and just as I was about to post, it is shit like this following video that fucking kills me.

A democrat should NEVER fellate a republican to slam a democrat. NEVER. PERIOD.

psssst. Hill, darling, remember what we learned in 2004? Voters won’t buy the imitation Republican, when they can get the real thing for free.

Ok, let’s play a game. Word Association. (Ok more like phrase association, but humor me)

“testy exchange”
“shot back”
“fired back angrily”
“confronted”

Still with me?

Ok now watch a short video.

Now, do any of the phrases above describe what occurred in the video?

Of course not.

Unfortunately, our valiant press corps, and most notably in this instance, ABC news’ Sunlan Miller, spent too much time in the creative writing department, instead of, well, journalism classes.

Here’s some snippets of that yellow press that is just hacktastic. For starters the question asked was something to the effect of “Is Bill Clinton getting into your head?”

“I am trying to make sure that his statements by him are answered. Don’t you think that’s important?” Obama shot back, while walking away.

When Zeleny yelled a follow up question suggesting the Illinois senator had not answered the question, Obama fired back angrily, “Don’t try cheap stunts like that.”

Obama then walked away and shook hands with the mass of voters that surrounded him.

A few minutes later, Obama came back and confronted Zeleny again.

“I will answer your question though off the record, would you like to talk off the record?” Obama asked. Zeleny refused to go off the record and then motioned toward the gaggle of TV cameras gathered around him. (emphasis added)

Really guys? I mean, are you so desperate to start the Obama Can’t Handle Clinton meme that you have to basically make it up? Or are you just angry that he called you guys on trying a cheap stunt. Either way, please, cut it out.

If this man’s hands contained any more ham, my grandmother would glaze them in honey and serve them for Easter dinner. I mean I’ve heard of hatchet jobs but this is just laughable.

I guess Senator Obama was just too busy working for the poor and homeless in Chicago to take time to watch the Tom Cruise movie, The Firm. Because if he had the Tony Rezko case would not be biting him in the ass. In case you forgot, Cruise played a white version of Barack Obama–a charming, up-and-comer fresh out of law school idealist who fell in with a crowd of scalawags who were tied to the mob.

This isn’t even a hatchet job. It’s a herring job. Just let the boys from Monty Python elaborate:

Do you like how I tied together the concept of a nonsense hatchet job, with a (red) herring around a scene from a movie that is that is itself sheer nonsense? See how I did that? It’s because I’m smart.

mmmm. ham.

As the Strib continues its long, hellish descent into madness, all Miss Havisham-with-ink-in-her-veins style, Withering Glance with Claude Peck and Rick Nelson has now officially replaced Katherine Kersten as the most irritating column in the paper. Because what’s a descent into madness without a nancy-boy court jester? Nothing to be embarrassed about, that’s for sure, and if the Strib’s going to implode, it’s going to implode the right way: embarrassing, messy, full of lawsuits and leaving nothing to the imagination.

Yesterday, Claude and Rick were ever the part of their giddy selves, as self-congratulatory as a 13-year-old girl and twice as rich. I’d like to say they’re setting the gay rights movement back a decade, but that would be unfair. They’re just keeping it stagnant. Sort of like all of the “gay” characters on the televisions, with their impeccable ability to make women whole because they have no lives of their own, and certainly nothing icky. So, by that, I suppose that Claude and Rick aren’t so much gay as they are faggy. The blissful stagnancy of substance-free dreck, breeding so many mosquitoes.

Anyway, here’s my take on yesterday’s WG or, as I like to call it, The Limp-Wristed Bitch-Slap (which I feel to be a far more accurate title, even for a family newspaper—perhaps especially for a family newspaper).

CP: How are you set for straight male friends, Rick?

RN: I don’t quite understand the question.

Here, we see CP and RN trying to establish the “premise”: Rick Nelson is too busy with a manicure or poppers to focus on his job, and he’s sort of daft in a very adorable kind of way, the kind of way that has wide, clear eyes that always seem to be looking into middle distance. LESSON: Gay men are charming but incompetent. This is why gay men make really good admin assistants, as long as you have a competent woman to back them up, because even if they screw up the copy jobs, they’ll always have a cute quip about how your enemies must be destroyed (cf. Ugly Betty).

RN: [...] Of course I know and adore a number of straight men — and these are guys with whom I do not share a familial or workplace bond — but when it comes right down to it, do I have any that I would consider to be friends the way that you and are I [sic] friends? No. Does that put us in some emotional gay ghetto?

CP: Yes, it does.

I’m glad CP managed to crawl out of the intellectual Cosmopolitan 3-for-1 happy hour long enough to have at least one moment of clarity for 2008. Good for you, Claude. LESSON: Gay men only understand they’ve made a mistake when they hear the word “ghetto,” be that mistake emotional segregation or an article of clothing.

RN: Andrew [some straight guy who apparently committed war crimes in a previous life and, as punishment, is mentioned here as a friend of CP's] is a doll; it’s easy to see why Melissa is ga-ga over him. Perhaps the secret is befriending, as my cousin Elise used to call them, SNAGs, as in Sensitive New Age Guys. They know who they are, we know who we are, and we appreciate one another’s differences and similarities.

CP: You sound very Free to Be You and Me, mon cher. We’re supposed to be post-gay now, so I fret that my relative lack of straight buds is dating me.

RN: That, and those shoes.

Oh, ZING!, Rick Nelson. SNAP!, Rick Nelson. YOU GO GIRL!, Rick Nelson. LESSON: There is no better way to judge a human being’s soul than by their accessories.

CP has another revelation here before Rick Nelson vomits a hack joke all over it. I have no idea how old these guys are, but something just reeks of about ten, fifteen years older than me, though… A lot less Nirvana went into their upbringings, I think, and the relative flexibility of gender in the early ’90s did many of us a lot of good. In a way, I feel sorry for them. But I’m sure their shoes are very supple and their skin is very taut, so I shouldn’t worry too much. They seem happy.

Anyways, according to the column, CP has four straight guy friends in his cell phone. I have 12. Of course, CP also claims to have 133 entries on his cell phone. I have a mere 60, meaning my straight-guy-friend quotient is 20% to Claude’s 3%. That, I suppose, is the difference. That, I suppose, is the reason I just don’t understand The Limp-Wristed Bitch-Slap. That, I suppose, is the power of thinking homosexuality is a piece of one’s individuality and the power of thinking homosexuality imbues one with powers of flair and panache. That, I suppose, is why I really do consider myself post-gay and why CP and RN are threatened by the term.

I don’t consider being gay special. I consider it mind-numbingly normal. I think the Limp-Wristed Bitch-Slap boys consider it special, different, perhaps even better, as far as appreciation of risotto is concerned.

Which, at the end of the long, withering day, is usually just a defense mechanism minorities adopt when they don’t think they’re as good as the people in the majority.

Okay, Katherine Kersten is one thing: We’ve all come to expect every last quotation mark, we can all predict the drivel and she’s not even worth reading any longer, because we all know she’s going to rewrite press releases from the Heritage Foundation… But this?!? Claude Peck and Rick Nelson in “Whithering Glance” are doing what they do best:

Yeah, it’s the unspoken role that the DGU [Doting Gay Uncle] takes on: fabulousness appreciation.

What year do they think it is? What drugs are they on? Why do they constantly describe being a gay guy as if they have “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” on continual loop in their heads? Has their blood been replaced with crushed sequins and cotton candy? And since when are sentences like “Ralph Lauren is adorable in miniature” insightful and witty instead of trite and clichéd? ANSWER ME!

What bothers me the most is that they’re given carte blanche to present their trite, plastic little world as gay reality to all those Anoka County weirdos their publishers have been lusting after and tacky young women with more credit than souls who admire shit like “Ralph Lauren is adorable in miniature.” I don’t care if it’s supposed to be amusing—or amusant, sorry—it is patently offensive in its stupidity. It needs to fucking stop. Claude and Rick need to stop with the Uncle Tommy Hilfiger act. The Strib needs to stop treating its readers like mentally deficient reality-TV addicts who can only think in pigeonholes.

God, I hate them. Hate them, hate them, hate them. And Claude Peck, you fuckwad, you’d better not review my Fringe show. You’re a terrible journalist and a failure as a gay man.

Someone is ranting about Mark Ritchie again. It’s getting old. Read about it here.

I was going to respond. Write an impassioned defense of someone I helped put into office. But with MDE, what’s the point? I think it will be more effective to mock Mr. Brodkorb and his ilk with this Natalie Dee cartoon.

nataliedee.com

Sometimes reading the Star Tribune is like getting stuck at an arts fundraiser with an old woman who has more money than taste and more blind, misguided enthusiasm about herself than money. I say this because I’m even more perplexed than usual by C.J.’s column in the Strib. For those not in the know, C.J. is the Star Tribune’s gossip columnist. Well, if publishing local TV anchors’ preferences for Montessori boot camps can be considered gossip.

Anyway, C.J.’s writing that:

Some Twin Citians with ties to Al Gore are dreaming of a Democratic presidential campaign partnership between the new Oscar winner and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

Wouldn’t that be an ultimate “Inconvenient Truth” for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton?

The Twin Citians have a gut feeling that a Gore-Obama ticket would be unbeatable. They hope Gore will go to Obama and propose that Al will throw his hat in the ring if the Illinois senator would commit to being his vice-presidential running mate.

Gore has the experience and, as NYT Queen of Penmeanship Maureen Dowd has written, the prescience about issues that matter — global climate change, the Internet, terrorism and Iraq.

The only reason I am starting to pay these Twin Citians any attention is their prescience up until now. Months before the Academy Awards nominations, they told me Gore would get one and that he’d win an Oscar.

I ran their vision by GreenMark Environmental Sports Marketing prez Mark Andrew, a political insider, who said these Gore fans may just be having a pipe dream.

“Obama is such a media star right now, I predict that if Gore asked Obama to be his running mate Obama will turn that around and ask Gore to be his running mate.”

What about Obama’s alleged inexperience? “JFK didn’t have any experience, either,” Andrew replied. “If lack of experience is the worse thing they can come up with against Obama, he is going to be the next president.

“Your source should look at the primary election schedule,” said Andrew. “In a few months it’s going to be too late” for Gore to jump in.

I’m not sure what all the italics mean. In fact, I don’t know what any of this means. I’ve not a clue. Do you know what this means? I don’t know what this means. Is this a riddle? If it is a riddle, then what’s the answer? Orange? 29? No? France! Millipede! ARGYLE! JUDITH LIGHT! WHAT?!? All I can see is a flurry of bad puns and awkward typography.

Anyway, while it is very exciting to read all about what Mystery Minnesotans are thinking about our next president after finding out where Suze Orman gets her hair cut when she’s in town (Juut! and they come to the hotel! so coastal! what does Belinda Jensen think?), I somehow find it distasteful, in much the same way I find Barney the Dinosaur and zwieback distasteful.

Because no one saw Al Gore’s Oscar win coming. No. Not from a million miles away. Not a one of us. It was perhaps the biggest upset since, oh, the Hebrew exodus from Egypt. It was so shocking I got a nosebleed. We should totally listen to those people when it comes to a Gore-Obama ticket. We should certainly publish their whispers over tuna salad at Gaviidae. Maybe Katherine Kersten could weigh in, too.

Weren’t there any two-headed cats born in Washington County today? Or maybe a nice high school girls’ basketball star who has leukemia or something? People eat that shit up, Star Tribune. You should know that by now, you stupid bitch.

Andy Brehm has a letter in the Strib this morning. Pretty typical stuff: The DFL should confirm Pawlenty’s appointments without delay, because it’s important, and blah blah blah Democrats should be fair and stuff, even when Republicans aren’t. You know the song and dance:

The DFL-controlled Senate has every right to challenge the policies of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, but confirmation hearings are not the place to do it.

Uh… Why not, exactly? Because of some sort of oddly precious and uncomplicated version of the constitution that prohibits it? Well, that doesn’t exist. Tradition dictates it’s out-of-bounds? Nope, not that, either. What else? Don’t know. Shut up, Andy.

DFL senators have also signaled they may also protest gubernatorial policy by voting down the nomination of Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau to be transportation commissioner, a position for which she is more than equipped.

But aren’t nominations just another form of policy? The person at the top of a department or commission or whatever sets policy. Implements policy. Does stuff. Policy stuff. I think it’s a very nice form of protest, in fact, even when I disagree with it.

The Senate has a responsibility to support the governor’s well-qualified nominees; these are important posts and they should be filled quickly. The policy sparring should be saved for later.

ANDY BREHM, MINNEAPOLIS

Oh, hack Andy! That’s so adorable. Save the moral outrage for something meaningful, like getting full-fat mayonnaise instead of reduced-fat mayonnaise and mustard on your turkey club over lunch. Anyway, Mr. Brehm counts as a hack because he’s a former press secretary for King Tool, Sen. Norm Coleman—that, and he can’t seem to bother writing a letter to the editor that isn’t chock full o’ 100% focus-group-approved Ranch Flavored Talkin’ Points™. He also was a law student. Couldn’t quickly find out if he graduated or not… I’m assuming so. “Andy Brehm.” What else can he do with a name like that? Toothpaste salesman?

That would be my guess. Andy Brehm, Assistant Regional Toothpaste Sales Manager.

UPDATE: Oh, he’s a professional hack. He was up on TPT’s “Almanac: At the Capitol” program. He’s also about ready to graduate. They made a joke out of it.

Gosh, he has nice hair. Kind of like a pillow of golden hackery.