PERFECTLY KERNED BULLSHIT. When the kids ask me, "Why, Uncle Roy, what do you mean when you say that the rightwing attack machine greases its gears with excremental journalism?" I never have to reach far for a quote, as planted, massaged, and/or managed stories are as plentiful in the conservative press as sunshine in Florida.

Let's take a story making the rounds today, which has received so far the imprimatur of Jonah Goldberg ("SOME COWARDLY S.O.B. beats up a US soldier for wearing an Iraqi freedom shirt") and Professor Reynolds ("new climate of fear in America... not anti-war. Just on the other side"):

A local soldier back from the war in Iraq said he was beaten at an area concert because of what was printed on his T-shirt, NBC 4's Nancy Burton reported.

Foster Barton, 19, of Grove City, received a Purple Heart for his military service in Iraq. He almost lost his leg last month after a Humvee he was riding in ran over a landmine.

Barton said he was injured again Friday night in a crowded parking lot as he was leaving the Toby Keith concert at Germain Amphitheatre. The solider was injured so badly that he can't go back to Iraq as scheduled...

Barton and his family said he was beat up because he was wearing an Iraqi freedom T-shirt.

We know Goldberg and Reynolds, like the hundreds of Fighting Keyboarders who will flog this tale over the days to come, do not practice journalism, and now it appears that they do not exercise, or credit to others, even the basic sort of reasoning popularly known as common sense.

They imply that a guy who went to a Toby Keith concert and got into a fight -- which sounds like a normal, red-blooded American knucklehead's perfect Saturday night to me -- was motivated by leftist politics. (Even Goldberg's colleague Kathryn Lopez is confused by this; as confusion is the NRO denmother's natural state, however, this leads to no further questioning.)

Some witnesses say the assailant was "screaming profanities and making crude remarks about U.S. soldiers." While this seems to shout "leftist political operative" to our new Woodwards and Bernsteins, observers even mildly acquainted with waking reality would rank the possibility that the ruffian in question had once been rejected by the Army (or had an asshole father who once served, or had just been listening to "War Pigs" while availing a bong) much higher.

Other aspects of the story smell. For instance, it appears that the assailant has not been arrested. As one of the witnesses is described as "a friend of the alleged attacker," it cannot be that the cops are unable to locate him. If this assault is as the victim describes it -- unprovoked and severely damaging -- why isn't the perp in jail?

As my phony angle is as good, or as bad, as anyone else's, let me offer this: perhaps the bounder in question is a loyal Bush supporter and, having gotten a bellyful of Toby Keith's testosterone entertainment, went around looking to pounce on anyone who fit the profile of the enemy: i.e., a veteran with a Purple Heart.

Hell, if Barton were a multiple amputee, the guy might have killed him.

UPDATE. The story inspires the usual reasoned analysis in the blogosphere:

"Did John Kerry teach you guys anything? Oh, yeah, I suppose he did at that..." -- Weapons of Mass Destruction

"Apparently, 6 assailants, who are no doubt peace loving anti-war loyal oppositionist fans of [Ted] Rall, who attacked this soldier at a concert , didn't feel to surpressed..." -- Infidel Cowboy

"Nice to know Kerry hasn't lost it -- He can still get the loons to hate our bravest!" -- Life Trek

"...the angry anti-war rhetoric coming from leftists in this country -- yes, that includes John Kerry, Howard Dean, moveon.org et al -- has reached a point where it is no longer distinguishable from the propaganda of our enemy .. and it is inciting the type of actions last Friday night at the Germain Amphitheater." -- Merry Mad Monk

"Peace-loving liberals: Yeah, those people you see at peace rallies really are the type that support our troops... Profanities. Crude remarks. Yeah, that sounds like our war protester-types." -- Hoy Story

Etc. Funny, I didn't get the memo from the Kerry campaign telling us to skulk around Toby Keith concerts looking for soldiers to beat up, did you guys? Ah well. It takes a Reichstag... actually, it doesn't even take that.

ON THE INTERNET, NO ONE KNOWS YOUR STORY'S A DOG. Andrew Sullivan prefaces an alleged letter from a solider, linked from Hewitt, this way:

I can't "authenticate" it, and I hope Hewitt vetted it. (Hewitt is, alas, a pure partisan -- his own site's motto is about the destruction of Democrats, whoever they are -- but the email rings true to me.)

Sullivan doesn't know if it's real, the source has a grudge, but he's going with it anyway, and then commenting on it as if it were revealed truth. Advantage: Blogosphere! That'll show Ra^ther.

(Earlier, Sullivan had refused to even visit the Iraqi Body Count page -- which is extensively sourced -- because "its biases are so blatant and so hostile to the liberation.")

I'm sure the Bush people will forgive Sullivan his (probably temporary and certainly unconvincing) apostasy. Anyone who can torture reality like that is too valuable to lose. Besides, they can always trot him out as some sort of "diversity" figurine -- until such time as they don't have to worry about appearing diverse at all.

BIG STIFF ON LATE NIGHT. Only saw a bit of this, but Kerry looked looser than usually, by which I mean that the stick up his ass seems to have been broken in several places, allowing great flexibility of movement.

I will say that his explanation of "voted for before I voted against" makes sense. Wonder how I missed hearing it before? Hey, look over there -- inappropriate kerning!

TIGHT NOT TOUCHING. The CBS memo thing seems to have worked out adversely for Dan Rather et alia. I imagine this link will give a good view of the bloggers' chest-beating denouement for quite some time. Their enthusiasm is wilder now than at their last victory party over Trent Lott, because, as I observed at the time, most of them didn't so much care about Lott's racism as they did about the prospect of a scalp to call their own. But, while Lott lost some accoutrements of power, Rather seems to be keeping his job. So for the moment effigies will have to do.

The next phase of the operation seeks to establish a link between the memos, CBS, and the Kerry campaign via Joe Lockhart. But the notion that Democrats and Big Media are mobbed up is received wisdom among the bloggers and their constituents -- right up there with the sanctity of gun ownership and heterosexual marriage -- so it is hard to see what hearts and minds are left to be won in that regard.

There are other options. Representative Christopher Cox has called for a Congressional investigation of CBS. This is probably just an attempt at leverage against an ancient enemy, but you never know where wildfire will get to once the flames have been fanned.

Some who remember the various bullshit stories floated about Clinton in the last decade might wonder at the fuss. Technology is a marvel, friends. Not only can it extend power to an unprecedented degree; it can also make the powerful look like underdogs, if there is a purpose to be served by it.

AND BESIDES, IT'S ALL ABOUT HOMOSEXUALS! Guess I wasn't the only serious political journalist watching the Emmys. Brent Bozell clone Tim Graham announces that "giving Emmy awards to 'Angels in America' is transparently political and anti-religious." Boy, I don't know why the nets don't turn their Emmy beat over to the guys from Fox and Friends -- soapbox cranks on awards shows are a barrel of laffs!

Even laffier, not to mention taffier, are the linked ravings of the original Bozell on Angels in America: "Artistically," he bravely begins, "it's a sprawling mess... a parade of blasphemy and profanity, a concerto of conservative-bashing... It’s exactly what playwrights and actors love – self-consciously writerly, intellectually preening, over-emoting..." Oh, and "Theologically, it’s even worse." Just in case you thought theatre criticism was Bozell's only stock in trade.

Part of the problem with these guys on art, any art, is that they confuse John Simon's old Tonight Show appearances with Hazlitt and Dr. Johnson. They think dyspepsia and outrage are criticism. And they think ideology is an artistic standard. Maybe in the journalistic schoolyard they inhabit, that kind of slipshod work passes, but not 'round here, sir.

And they wonder why artists don't like them.

EMMYS. I spent most of Garry Shandling's monologue adjusting the color on my TV. It's amazing they found him a tux that fits so well, since he's been obviously been living on a sidewalk in L.A. for a couple of years. He's still pretty funny though.

Since I don't have cable and just watch the same few things over and over again (mostly test patterns, infomercials, and that episode of "Seinfeld" with Molly Shannon), I can't possibly judge what's going on here. I see they're sticking skits in between awards. I don't know about that. We'll see if the tabloid coverage tomorrow includes big pictures of the skits.

UPDATE. I kind of like the skits. It's you're going to be derivative, derive from quality. Speaking of "The Larry Sanders Show," it was nice to see Jeffrey Tambor up there. I really believe Hank Kingsley was one of the greatest comedy characters since Tartuffe -- an immediately recognizable type and completely unique and idiosyncratic at the same time.

Hey, is that Jon Stewart theme really "I Feel So Good" by Richard Thompson?

UPDATE 2. Elaine Stritch has the music people scared. Well, who wouldn't be? There goes the big flourish -- they have a trap door, I assume.

UPDATE 3. I think the Democrats should have nominated Jon Stewart. And while we're on the subject, I should be writing for his show. I make lots of jokes about politics. Perhaps I'll send them some of my humorous meditations on Professor Glenn Reynolds and Roger L. Simon, with a letter of introduction from Kevin Drum. Pure comedy gold!

UPDATE 4. I've got to see that Sopranos show sometime. I hear it's pretty good.

UPDATE 5. I can't wait for the tearful farewell episodes of "World According to Jim" and "CSI Miami."

UPDATE 6. Well, I guess Mary-Louise Parker and her dress will be in the papers tomorrow. That's a good combination: serious Broadway actress and vertical cleavage.

So, is the deal with The Forgotten that Julianne Moore is really dead, or that everyone else is dead, or that everyone including Julianne Moore is dead, or that we are all the dream of a sleeping giant?

I don't mean to brag and it's certainly nothing to brag about, but I figured out The Sixth Sense when Bruce Willis first met the kid. After that it was very funny. I kept expecting Willis to say to people, "Oh, so you won't talk, eh?" and "Givin' me the old silent treatment, are ya?"

Boy, I'd hate to be George Lopez' otolaryngologist.

UPDATE 7. Oh, now, that isn't fair -- Tony Kushner wrote that play already. What do they do when a Shakespeare play wins a writing award? Get Larry Gelbart come out and say how sad it is Bill couldn't be here because he would have been thrilled?

UPDATE 8. I don't know anything about reality shows. My Mom likes all of them, so I guess I have to go with the one with the midget, if only as a sort of cryptic tribute to Michael Dunn's great Dr. Loveless on The Wild, Wild West. I will say that the whole show should be presented by ordinary people who don't know what's going on. Or maybe it should be presented, like the craft awards on the Oscars and the Best Musical Program awards tonight, at ceremonies held earlier in San Luis Obispo, and mercilessly excerpted. Then they could run a whole bunch more more Kmart commercials, and Shandling could do improv with people in the first five rows.

UPDATE 9. I'm sure Pacino was great as Roy Cohn (one day I'll see if he was as good as Ron Liebman) but he's a terrible award-winner. He needs some writers, but hell, so does Kerry, what are you gonna do? I'm amazed what a robot Mike Nichols has turned into. Mike Nichols of Nichols and May! I guess that comes from being a one-man major entertainment institution for ninety years; after a while that tan seeps right down into your soul.

UPDATE 10. It's nice that they're talking about Danny Thomas, and so sad that he isn't around today to come out here with a big cigar and say, "Everything on television today is sex! They got 'Sex in the City,' sex in the country, sex in the bathroom, the living room, everywhere except in the bedroom, where it belongs! With two beds! You think Desi and Lucy woulda been funnier if they were sleeping the same bed? They'd both be lucky to wake up alive, lemme tell ya! And don't get me started on that rap music..."

If the cops were doing their jobs the Raveonettes would be in jail for that Jesus & Mary Chain ripoff.

UPDATE 11. Now, it's too bad that Patricia Heaton didn't win because I really had a premonition that this would be the year she just flipped out and started screaming about abortion and what a bunch of murderers everyone in the audience was. Plus, Sarah Jessica Parker isn't that good.

UPDATE 12. Conan is so funny. Not so funny is Kelsey Grammer. It's weird that the new Bob Hope is an actor obviously perfectly suited to play a blowhard, so much so that I'm sorry I didn't see his Macbeth -- it must have been hilarious.

These dead-people things are so weird. First of all, there are the lulls (who is that guy? He's Jack Elam, you stupid fuck, he was in Once Upon a Time in the West). Then there's the added weirdness of film people in the TV necrotribute. It seems almost presumptuous -- like the Fat People of America doing a tribute for Peter Ustinov and Brando. (Glad they showed a clip from "Roots: The Next Generation" though.) And the people who died latest get the biggest claps. In heaven right now, Tony Randall is doing a little victory dance around Alastair Cooke.

UPDATE 13. James Spader kinda walked into TV like a CEO who'd been squeezed out and decided, fuck it, I'll go run a little shop on the boardwalk like I don't give a shit because I don't. And the little shop is a major success.

UPDATE 14. I used to wonder if the absent nominees get to choose the pictures that are shown when their names are called. Emma Thompson convinces me that they do not. Meryl Streep was very charming. Mike Nichols' grin is getting creepier, like a Bond villain's: yes, yes, everythink is going accordink to plan...

UPDATE 15. It must suck to work on a mini-series for thousands of hours and then have "Angels in America" come out the same year. Goldfinger delivers a suitably downbeat valedictory.

Hey, now we're moving. "Arrested Development" lets Opie claim a much-deserved Emmy to go with his are-you-joking Oscar.

UPDATE 16. Thank God, we're almost done. Hey, everybody love-a "The Sopranos"! David Chase is a much more manicured type than I expected. But what do I know about real writers? Thank you and good night!

THE JOE ROGAN ADMINISTRATION. Here's a good, concise pdf from the Century Foundation, about rising personal debt in the U.S.A. (That TPM ad wasn't wasted, guys.) It is very clearly written, and peppered with astute and depressing observations like these:

Households are spending more of their incomes than ever on servicing their debts. The debt burden indicator constructed by the Federal Reserve, which measures how large a proportion of families’ incomes goes toward paying off debts, reached a new high recently... Low-income families have become especially vulnerable -- 27 percent of households in the lowest income group now report spending a staggering 40 percent of take-home earnings on debt payments.

Debt burdens are at record levels because families have been stretched to the limit in recent years. With more income going to housing and other rising expenses related to medical care, education, vehicles, child care, and so forth, families are relying on credit as a way to meet everyday needs. Remarkably, a family with two earners today actually has less discretionary income, after fixed costs like medical insurance and mortgage payments are accounted for, than did a family with only one breadwinner in the 1970s. [emphasis added]

This is one of those things that anyone who is over the age of 40, and who either lives in or has access to middle-class society, knows by both observation and instinct. Anyone who's trying to keep what was once a typical American life going, especially with kids and a house, knows that the slope's getting steeper.

But when you have pixie-dust salesmen like Larry Kudlow -- who thinks the President will landslide into a second term on the strength of the economy -- telling you that everything is going great, you might feel like a big loser if your own struggle isn't getting as exponentially easier as the economic experts tell you it should be.

So maybe a guy keeps his mouth shut about it, even to pollsters. For in the Fear Factory America has largely become, it hurts to admit defeat, or even a little weakness, because it is the same thing as loserhood, and in the modern imagination there is no greater crime than losing. So maybe he stays "positive," that is, works longer hours, or eats more bugs, just to stay even (and quietly accepts another five grand in debt to keep the house painted and the kids innoculated and the strain from showing too overtly); then, with the next jump in the price of staple goods, or the next disappointing raise, he steps up and does it again...

I wonder if the job has been done so well on him that he'll still feel that way in the voting booth.

YOU'VE GOT YOUR GOOD THINGS, AND I'VE GOT MINE. John J. Miller avails that popular rightwing dream-object, the cabby who confirms your prejudices:

My driver was Bosnian... Toward the end of the ride, he mentioned that he thinks Republicans are much more polite than Democrats. "Someone can be in the car with me for three minutes, and I'll know their party just from how they behave," he said... my driver turned around (we were at a red light) and lit up: "Ken Starr is the nicest man in Washington."

This contrasts strongly with the opinion of the cabbie with whom I rode last night, who told me that, during the recent Convention here, GOP delegates would routinely greet him with "To my hotel, nigger," urinate on themselves and the upholstery, and then run off without paying what they owed; whenever Rashawn (for that was my cabbie's name) shouted for a cop to apprehend the farebeaters, the delegates would merely wave their credentials in the officer's face and skip merrily away, singing the Horst Wessel Song.

Ken Starr, he noted, was particularly bad: "Fucker tried to shoot me in my own cab," said Rashawn. "But he was so fucked up on junk he couldn't draw a bead on me from the back seat, so he shot the chick that was suckin' his dick instead."

His Democratic fares, on the other hand, always offer to rub his shoulders as he drives, and tip him with summer houses in Amagansett.

Rashawn also tells me that this "little girl" is actually a 35-year-old midget who works for the RNC. "She's always blubbering about something or other," observes Rashawn. "I bet she ripped up her own sign just to get attention. A few lines of coke ought to shut her up. Back when she was dancing at the Baby Doll, she always had a frosted-donut mustache, if you know what I mean."

My cabby is no more believable than Miller's, but he's far, far more interesting.

SPEAKING OF FRAUDS. Daniel Henninger goes to Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley:

At the seniors center in Allentown, I met a fellow who said he'd lived all his life in New York City, when one day his wife said she wanted to move out west. They made it 30 miles into Pennsylvania, stopped and stayed. He's a Bush man, supports the war and the way Mr. Bush has handled it.

Standing next to him was a fellow named Francisco Figueroa. Mr. Figueroa was wearing a red U.S. Marine Corps cap pinned with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. A big-city journalist too familiar with stereotypes blurted: "Guess we know where you stand." Mr. Figueroa said, "What do you mean?"

Mr. Figueroa got his medals in Vietnam, where he did advance scouting on village conditions, one of which was My Lai. He's been shot at, a lot. He is voting for John Kerry. Why? Because John Kerry was over there, in the middle of it. The other guy never was....

Then Henninger sees some flags, a Marshmallow Peeps factory, and a car race. "Lasting impression," decides Henninger, "The Bush voters sounded solid. The Kerry votes came over as soft; everyone seems aware of the flip-flop label. Timid prediction: The Lehigh Valley goes Bush."

I understand Gallup uses similar methods.

INSTAFRAUD.

You've never seen me sing the praises of George W. Bush the way that, say, Andrew Sullivan was doing at one point.

The Ole Perfesser is never less convincing than on those occasions when he rambles at length between quick link/heh jobs, and his latest cracker-barrel blather is perhaps the worst in his whole ignoble history. The comparison to the crimson-prosed Sullivan is telling; no one seems more grandiloquent than Sully in the throes of passion, whereas the Perfesser's schtick has ever been a pomo pretense of loftiness.

I don't need to link evidence -- go to his archive and look at any one or two pages: The guy's a straight-up Bush operative. Just the other day he blew the doors off his erstwhile pretense of support for gay marriage just to preserve style points for his beloved Bush. How long before he goes that way on drug law reform? About as long as it takes for the next wave of draconian legislation to spew forth from a reenergized Republican Congress. Then the Prof will tell us, as he did with the gay thing, how everyone should just stop fussing and wait for a "generational" shift to save us.

Maybe this conservatarian dodge baffles the unformed minds in his classroom, but why do some adults fall for it? Call Roger L. Simon's disease: a disassociative condition occuring in formerly cool guys when they look in the mirror one day and see Dick Armey staring back at them.

HA FUCKING HA. Jonah Goldberg has Marion Barry laffs, resuscitating one of his old gags about how Barry's base is well-stocked with felons. If one didn't know Goldberg's history, one might be surprised that he thought it worthy of repetition.

YOU GOTTA FIGHT TO STAY INDEPENDENT/I GOT MY PRIDE AND I'M GONNA DEFEND IT. Another Ramone done gone, this time Johnny, age 55, of prostate cancer in Los Angeles. In End of the Century, he was asked why he hadn't reached out to his old partner Joey when he was on his way out in 2001. He said that he wouldn't have wanted the shoe on the other foot: somebody he wasn't speaking to calling him up when he was dying to say how sorry he was. Knowing what we know about Johnny, the quintessential hardass, that's understandable.

Look who was with him at the end:

Along with his wife, Linda Cummings, Johnny Ramone was surrounded at his death by friends Eddie and Jill Vedder, Rob and Sherrie Zombie and others. Other friends who gathered at his Los Angeles home included Lisa Marie Presley, Pete Yorn, Vincent Gallo and Talia Shire.

Vincent Gallo and Talia Shire! I have no doubt they were really his friends, but the combination is still funny -- like Allan Arkush and Stephen King, y'know. Like a Ramones song.

R.I.P., tough guy. Thanks for putting a damper on all those wanking solos.

DEAF FOREVER. At National Review Online, it's John J. Miller's turn to grab the crayon and write about culture. I gave him Dude points at least for choosing Iron Maiden's Powerslave as a topic, till I came to this part:

The second song is one of Iron Maiden's most familiar: "Two Minutes to Midnight." It's an anti-nuke tune whose politics aren't exactly to my liking. Although the lyrics admit that "blood is freedom's stain," they also suggest that during the Cold War, both sides were deluded. The title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, whose main purpose is to serve as a propaganda tool of the Left. None of this means that the boys in Iron Maiden are Commie symps -— they aren't -— but a piece of me always has wished this song had been about Dunkirk or something...

I want it understood that, when I bemoan writing about the arts by conservative factota such as Miller, it's not because I believe their conservatism makes any difference, but because they invariably believe it does. Does any normal person think, "I like Whit Stillman, but I wish he had overtly praised labor unions in The Last Days of Disco," or, "I like Evelyn Waugh, but I wish he were more sensitive in matters of race and gender in Black Mischief"?

That's like saying, "I like turkey, but I wish it were pork."

These people are always bitching about how terrible it is that there are so many lefties in the arts (please, nobody tell them that musical comedy is riddled with homosexuals!), and when you read crap like Miller's it really seems as if their answer would be to nationalize culture and institute their own values by fiat and force, so that the orgasmic climax Ravel's Bolero would be interrupted by an abstinence lecture, Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath would wonder aloud whether it weren't selfish of him to resist dynamic capitalism just so's he and his family could have something to eat, etc.

It worked with journalism, after all. Why shouldn't it work with heavy metal?

GEE. THANKS. Vartan Gregorian, who was on the jury of the WTC Memorial Competition, uses that event as a springboard for a panegyric to New York City at OpinionJournal. It is hard to know why it is there, for while OJ's national politics are well-known, its journalistic politics are less comprehensible, at least to me. Gregorian was once President of the New York Public Library and seems like a decent, intelligent fellow. The Bushies like him, too, but nobody's wrong about everything.

Gregorian's comments, however, are less interesting than the OJ readers' responses to them. Some are gracious ("May New York City continue to reflect the glowing lamp of Lady Liberty"); others take a more combative tone. A couple of New Yorkers complain about the WTC plan Gregorian helped to affect. Russell Seitz of Cambridge, MA tweaks the former nabob of NYPL for closure of the Library's smoking rooms, which Seitz feels amounts "to a denial of public accommodation for the life of the mind."

A few, though, are really spooky-weird in a way that will be familiar to any who have heard conservatives discuss the City for any length of time. From Pensacola, FL, Joseph Revell takes a Falwellian tack:

One hopes that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob doesn't notice the "proud, self-confident city that cannot be bowed" headline that leads off this fine article. If He reads just the headline and skips the article He might decide New Yorkers need to be taught a lesson in humility. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem"--and of New York City! We do, out here in the hinterland. New York City is our city too!

One gets the feeling Revell wants to claim New York as "our city, too" in exactly the same way abusive parents assert dominion over their children. L. Gregory of Georgetown, TX, is less threatening, but equally condescending:

New York is indeed a magical place, but it sometimes forgets its true roots are in the heart of America. One of the main reasons for its remarkable survival of 9/11 was the strength it drew from all the citizens in every corner of America. The terrorists didn't just attack New York, they attacked all of us. We all contributed to its recovery, one way or another, and New York needs to remember it didn't stand alone that day...

Hold it right there, Tex. Y'all "contributed to its recovery" how? By sliding back a small chunk of the money we daily pour into the Federal coffers? By talking a good game while cutting funding to our police and firefighters and anti-terrorism efforts? If we "forget" our "true roots in the heart of America," it may be that you have made the memory unpleasant to us.

A lot of people think New Yorkers are arrogant and standoffish. The above examples may help explain why we seem so.

SHOW UP AT SHEA. Went this evening to a Met twi-night double against the Braves, arriving in the seventh inning of game one. Attendance seemed much lower than the reported 21,476 (Shea can hold 55,601); the patrons were gathered in clusters all around the ballpark, responding only weakly to all but the most spectacular events (e.g., the firing of Pepsi T-shirts into the stands). The couple behind me did their own feeble "Let's Go Mets" hand-clap at odd intervals, as if by force of habit; in front of me a couple encouraged their three young children in coordinated cheers, which they delivered with shrill glee, unmindful of the lack of spirit amongst the grown-ups in their section. Some drunk young men were occasionally inspired to bellow ("YUH DON'T BELONG IN THE BIG LEAGUES!"); many serenaded Chipper Jones with his less all-American Christian name; all booed Jae Seo lustily in game two. He seo sucked. He let in five runs and walked the Braves' pitcher. He intentionally walked "Lar-ry" Jones and then gave up a two-run double. All this despite the frenzied thunderstick encouragement of a bunch of Koreans gathered behind a "KING OF THE MOUND" banner in the right field mezzanine.

They've lost 11 of their last 13 games. You live with the Mets long enough and you get used to it. You may complain; the ticket buys you the privilege. (In the Post, a lovely photo recently appeared of two upper deck fans, one with a bag over his head, the other holding triumphantly aloft a sign that read, YA GOTTA BELIEVE -- WE STINK!) In the last days of such seasons, Shea is a desolate and miserable place. We still show up at Shea, though, because this is our team. There are worse qualities than loyalty, and ineptitude isn't one of them. Yankee fans flash their rings; Mets fans regard the fabled '69, '73, and '86 seasons almost as defeated races regard sacred myths, as bulwarks against despair, something to keep our souls alive from September swoon to glorious April, when again anything will be possible. We're kind of Irish. We gather in this grim council flat of a ballpark, with its hideous neon ornaments and aluminum siding and concrete ramps bounded by piano wire, and despite the bloodshed unfolding before us dream that Cuchulain and Michael Collins may someday hoof the mound.

Can't anyone here play this game? Wait'll next year! Ya gotta believe.

POMO POLITICS. The Ole Perfesser lays out for his acolytes the latest conservatarian dodge on gay marriage, comprising hundreds of poorly-chosen words reducible to, "I don't really give a shit, so why should you?"

There are many thrills and chills along the way (including approving quotation of a reader who blames the failure of the gay marriage movement to -- get this -- Roe v. Wade), but the fascinatingly deformed heart of the argument is: gay marriage is the wave of the future (a "generational thing"), but the Republicans are going to run everything forever and you better be nice to them if you ever want any of these rights you've been bellyaching about, generation landslide or not:

...attacking Bush on gay marriage may solidify the Democratic base, but it probably costs swing voters, at least in the short term. Second, that sort of thing can only serve to alienate Republicans, even those who are supportive, or at least not opposed to, gay marriage. [who they? -- RE] Given that right now it seems likely that we'll see a Republican Congress, and probably a Republican White House, in the coming years, that's probably poor planning, at least if you want actual change and not just an interest-group rallying cry...

It's possible to package gay marriage as a move toward traditional values and away from 1970s style hedonism (not that there's anything wrong with that). But again, you have to make the case, not call names, if you want to win people over.

Offensive as the politics of Reynolds and his crew are, it's this postmodern approach to issues that's most disturbing. You want gay marriage? Wait for it; it'll turn up, eventually, if it was meant to be. And don't get on my case if I support its professed opponents, because that's just name-calling.

Actually post-modern is probably the wrong word for it. Reynolds' POV was popular in his neck of the woods 150 years ago, when it was applied to the manumission of slaves.

ALTERNATE EXPLANATIONS FOR NORTH KOREA'S NON-NUCLEAR MUSHROOM CLOUD:

• Smoke from barbecue of 100,000 chickens, held in honor of Dear Leader.
  
• Even Dear Leader's farts are impressive, observable from outer space!
  
• Exhaust from Jajus backed up on Dear Leader Expressway during massive Dear Leader Day holiday weekend traffic jam.
  
• Slave labor camp smoke-break, synchronized nationwide -- a testament to Dear Leader's organizational skills.
  
• Massive cloud-sculpture representing nuclear explosion is gift to Dear Leader from the thriving downtown Pyongyang arts community.

If none of these pan out, it was nice knowing you guys.

PINHEAD. Finally saw the Ramones doc, End of the Century. It isn't so much artful as artifactual. It owes a lot to the "oral biography" form George Plimpton invented with Edie (and bears more than a historical resemblance to the punk chronicle Please Kill Me). This technique absents the filmmakers from the responsibility of a POV; they just dump a lot of clips, interviews, and supers on the table, and leave us to savor whichever juicy bits we prefer.

There are a lot of juicy bits, though, and even the fellow among us who was more or less unacquainted with the band enjoyed it. Of course, if you love the Ramones, the juice is more bittersweet.

I already knew a lot of their history, and I knew something, too, about punk aesthetics and the rigors of rock life. But the movie added details that made that -- all of that -- a bit clearer to me.

For example, I'd heard Johnny was the taskmaster of the band, but I didn't realize how completely he was devoted to his Will to Power: how everything about his life -- from the musical discipline to his own personal behavior -- was given over to a maniacal vision of domination. (I thought they were kidding with the Nuremberg theatrics of their big shows, but now I'm not so sure -- at least in his case.) And I came to believe something I'd always known by instinct: that a band pretty much needs an asshole who's always cracking heads and barking out the master plan; otherwise, as Johnny put it, "everybody just flounders around."

It also seems that Johnny's genius (I really think that's the word) at directing his bandmates' gifts and energies into a beautiful rock machine was also a personal catastrophe for everyone involved. Legs McNeil says in the film that Joey had to become a rock star because the poor, gawky, pathologically introverted guy "would have stood out anyway." Maybe. And maybe Dee Dee was better off playing bass than sniffing Carbona and boosting cars. (He might have OD'd sooner, too.) But our gain -- their magnificent albums and shows -- sure looks like their loss in the movie.

If you've been in a band for more than a little while (five years was my longest sentence) you know what the wear and tear can be like. If you're not completely empty-headed (and a lot of people do get through on that; we are talking about musicians, after all), interpersonal relationships tend to devolve into Eugene O'Neill territory very quickly. After a few years of working in an office with a guy, you will probably have learned almost nothing real about him. But if you tour a couple of times with the same guy, you will know more about him than his mother does. Factor in the painful sensitivity of creative people, and drugs and alcohol, and women, and financial hassles, and you get the House of Atreus plus hearing loss.

So watching Dee Dee gabble was very entertaining, and Joey's presence is always sweet, and it was a pleasure to hear inside dope from Tommy and Marky and all the affiliates, but Jesus Christ, I half-think it would have been worth losing Rocket to Russia if these guys could have become sheet-metal workers and obtained houses in Queens and maybe 401Ks and raised dull children and gotten together at holiday picnics and laughed about the dreams they'd once had of forming a great band. And Rocket to Russia is one of my favorite things on earth.

Because they all seemed fucking miserable. The moment when Johnny is asked if he cared when Joey died and he stammers behind huge violet shades, "Maybe, because of some weakness in myself… Maybe, because he was part of the Ramones, and the Ramones was something I loved… if someone threw something at him, I would go after the guy…" is about as depressing as it gets.

That doesn't mean I can’t enjoy their music any more. I, too, am a pinhead. I pissed away all my chances at normalcy and it is far, far too late to get them back, and the bushels of words and music I pour into the resulting hole have their charms, but they don't come close to filling it. Nonetheless, I still have enough soul left to wish better than that for others.

OH SHUT UP PROFESSOR."Powerline notes that the Kerry campaign is playing the Creedence Clearwater song Fortunate Son, as a subtle dig at George W. Bush's National Guard service... It's a great song. But, of course, the song was written by John Fogerty, who served stateside in the Reserves... Does the Kerry Campaign think that John Fogerty betrayed his country by not serving in Vietnam?"

See, that Kerry is such a flip-flopper he plays music by guys who didn't go to Vietnam.

When they ran out of rocks to throw, they threw pebbles, and when they ran out of pebbles they threw dirt, and when they ran out of dirt -- well, they'll never run out of dirt.

I JUST THOUGHT THIS NEEDED A LITTLE WIDER DISSEMINATION:



Used without permission, but I think Atrios will understand. Attaturk, a newly-established typewriter expert, has more.

Can't tell where this claim that embarrassing Bush documents are forgeries will end up, but it sure is interesting how fast it got into print via the Old New Media network (John Podhoretz -- yeah, that figures), and how the story has now changed from (unsubstantiated) These are obvious forgeries if you know how to look at 'em to (substantiated) Hey, Ma, we're in the papers!

As Attaturk also pointed out, "Amazing how the Freepers are able to get this Forgery Spin into the Media in less than 24 hours, yet it took them 3 Fucking Weeks to beat down the Swift Boat Smearers with a boatload of written documentation contradicting them."

Capitalization aside, I get where he's coming from. Forget the old saw that ends with "...before Truth gets its boots on." I suspect Truth is still in bed, or in its grave, as liars run rampant, screaming and ringing hand-bells as hard as they can.

PERSPECTIVE. I see someone's doing something about the Sudan:

A draft resolution introduced by the United States to step up pressure on Sudan over the crisis in Darfur met strong opposition at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.

The 15-nation council was divided over the US proposal, with Pakistan, Algeria and Russia voicing objections to it and European Union countries such as Britain and Germany throwing weight behind it, council diplomats said.

One could expect that sort of opposition from our soulful-eyed sometimes-ally Russia and our erstwhile buttboys in Pakistan (they get a lot of oil from Pakistan), but support from Germany! Who'd-a thunk it? Aren't they our enemies again? I mean they backed our invasion of Afghanistan, but didn't their lack of cooperation in Iraq put them into what the great minds among us call the Axis of Weasels?

And whither their partner-in-crime France? "Chile, Benin, Romania, France and Spain made positive comments," reports Reuters. "However they said France also questioned the need for sanctions threats at this time." Close, but no Chardonnay. Never fear, another round of funny nicknames will bring them around.

For those who joined us late, the United Nations is a deliberative body prone to the same sort of Byzantine political reversals as the U.S. Congress, where members of the famously pecunious Republican Party regularly vote to balloon our deficits.

In such situations, if you don't you work with the members, they don't work with you.

If this is unimportant, why are we even in the U.N.? Swing votes? Or do we really not take this genocide very seriously? (Hint: our lead dog in the operation is the long-invisible Colin Powell.)

Bonus question: Can we afford an invasion?

WELL, AT LEAST THE MAYOR'S WHITE. The heavy precipitation in our area today caused several subway lines to be delayed and one line, the M, was knocked out of service.

I'm showing my age with this, but I remember when the subway ran normally even during rainstorms. And now the MTA wants to raise fares.

You realize, of course, if Sharpton were mayor the City Journal would now be decrying our descent into chaos.

I LOVE A PARADE. Yesterday's West Indian American Day Parade in Crown Heights -- huge crowds, hopping music, booming soundtrucks, jerk chicken and pigeon peas, many happy people waving many flags (reflecting the hyphenated divisiveness with which I hope to destroy this country!), and, best of all, sturdy girls in skimpy costumes -- put me in such a persistent good mood that nonsense like this --

I said elsewhere that Democrats don't care about foreigners, and indeed this does seem to be the case: the party that prides itself most upon inclusiveness seems curiously indifferent to the fates of strange peoples in faraway countries of which they know nothing.

-- still seems to be happening on another planet.

GALLEONS OF SPAIN OFF JERSEY COAST. Tbogg has fingered a few recent examples of the "You can't fact-check an anecdote" genre, whereby National Review writers say Mister, I met a man once and proceed to recount some flattering tale about their own kind. The variants cited by Tbogg involve "reader mail" -- a perfect double-blind for this sort of operation: not only do you get an extra layer of protection against detection, you also get to frostily inform challengers that, while the identity of your correspondent cannot be revealed, you can personally vouch for his authenticity and veracity, and all the proof any man should need is the word of a paid political operative. Then, as your challengers sputter in outrage, you run off to audition a new Swift Boat Veteran for Truth or something.

Well, two can play at that game! Here is a letter from a Very Trustworthy Person whose name is none of your business, forwarded to me by an equally unimpeachable source, who found it in a hollow log to which he was directed by God Himself:

I am continually amazed at the level of quiet support for Kerry here in Fritters, Alabama. Though some few of our citizens regularly drag his flaming effigy along the dirt track we call Main Street, among the mobs that turn out to watch these spectacles I see many who are not literally flaming from the eyes with hatred, and even some that decline to hurl their own feces at the effigy. These fine men and women I'm sure will support our candidate in November.

Just the other day I spoke to a schoolteacher, who told me, "During the Convention I was beaten, spit on, and gang-raped by Republicans for teaching evolution. Though I have always voted for Republicans in the past, I shall mark my ballot this year for John Kerry." I smell a landslide.

I have many old but equally authentic letters that can also be used in a pinch.

LOOK OUT LIARS AND YOU HIGHLIFE SCUM.... In the New York Post, Ryan Sager, echoed by Republican operative Perfesser Reynolds, pretends to misapprehend last week's New York protest against Fox News:

It's enlightening to see just what the hard left's message is in this election. In two words: "Shut up"...

There, the crowd of protesters — many of the same people who have cried foul every time they've been denied a permit or asked not to lie down in the middle of an intersection — chanted this free-speech mantra at a news organization:

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

I moved through the crowd asking protesters to reconcile their demand to be heard with their demand that people who disagree with them shut up...

Later -- much too far down for the topic-sentence readers who get their news from the Post to see it -- Sager affects to learn "that the shut-up chant was meant to mimic how Fox News host Bill O'Reilly treats his guests."

No Sherlock, shithead. I attended this protest and the idea was clear as glass to anyone of normal intelligence -- presumably including Sager -- who observed it.

(It was a fun little protest, BTW, which drew cheers from midtown gawkers, especially when the cheerleaders danced and the Bush-effigy truck came around.)

You'd think by now I'd be more phlegmatic when these guys flat-out lie to advance their agenda. It does bring up my phlegm, but not in the way Ben Jonson intended.

THE INFORMATION. Michael Ledeen, normally involved in expanding our military adventures to new countries, has turned to media criticism. He thinks Zell Miller at the RNC went over a treat, and that this reflects a change in the state of the media:

[Marshall McLuhan] stressed that tv was "cool," and that "hot" personalities would do badly on it...

But I think that era is over now. First of all, because of the net, which has diversified our sources of information so dramatically. We no longer need the networks or the various Post's and Times's. We can just log on. And secondly, tv has gotten a lot hotter. Probably a lot of that is due to MTV and other such, but in any case the screen is now a much less antiseptic thing than it was a generation ago. People now argue and fight on tv, the decibels are higher, and the broadcasters are changing their style. They are competing for audience rather than monopolizing it. And so they change.

We may argue whether the content of television programming is generally "less antiseptic" now than it was in the days of Playhouse 90. But it is observably true that televised political discourse is significantly more jacked-up now. I just saw a promo for Hardball prominently featuring the ravings of Miller on that show. You certainly didn't get that in the days of Lawrence Spivak.

One night reasonably ask whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly Ledeen thinks it's good:

I suspect that when the cultural history of this period is written, the two big names will be Rush and Drudge, both of whom dramatically undercut the power of the Old Media, and gave the American people something they desperately wanted: the information that the Old Media monopolists didn't want to reach us.

Leaving aside the gruesome idea that the "cultural" achievements of our era will be exemplified by Matt Drudge, is it true that the Old Media filtered information?

Of course it is, in a way. No one with a Huntley-Brinkley sized public megaphone amplified the infidelities of, to name one example, Martin Luther King -- certainly not with the heavy funding, political acumen, and persistence of such efforts today. Had there then been a vibrant talk radio and screaming-head TV circuit, equivalent in reach and temperment to our own, we might have had television ads from the White Citizens Councils for Truth testifying to King's failings. These folks might eventually have wound up on Meet the Press and, sticking to their talking points, brushed aside all egghead talk of racial equality by asserting that no one of such dubious character -- one who had flourished his credentials as a clergyman, no less -- deserved a hearing from the American people.

Or imagine a similarly powerful popular movement, enabled by citizen's band or ham radio, operating at the time of the Watergate Hearings. The prior racial insensitivies of Sam Ervin might have been bigger news than the malefactions of the Plumbers, and a rowdy group of Republican operatives crying "Shut It Down!" outside Ervin's committee room might have helped direct the tide of events a different way.

And if a fellow like Rupert Murdoch were able to obtain a network like Fox ten, twenty, or thirty years earlier than Murdoch himself did, all sorts of scenaria are enabled. At the very least, our diplomatic relations with China would have been accelerated.

We could discuss for a good long while the extent to which "Old Media monopolists" deprived us of "information" (which is not always, I hasten to add, a synonym for truth), but our findings would not be of much use. That genie is out and its bottle is broken. Ledeen has a point. The temperature is rising. We will see soon enough whether this results in incubation or incineration.

SKILLS. I teach English on Saturdays. I think I'll print some of these out to instruct my more advanced students on the proper use of similes:

The Bush twins came out and embraced their dad, but it was an affectionless embrace, like those brief pats the American girl gymnasts gave each other after a routine...

But a volcano is stationary, like Dennis Hastert after a big lunch.

Memo to Jim Lehrer: Take naps on those days when you have to stay up late. There's no excuse for doddering from question to question like someone sitting in front of Floyd's barber shop.

Years ago, I read an account of a brief players' strike by the Detroit Tigers, which had obliged management to field a pick-up squad for a few games. Some contemporary sportswriter said the new outfielders' approach to fly balls was "like kittens going after bees." That scribe's name is lost to history, but James Wolcott is now posting regularly, and, as of today, on our blogroll.

GOODBYE TO ALL THAT. When I stepped out of work this evening, what a wonderful feeling of calm I got from Times Square. That may sound strange if you weren't around for the RNC. Even a dozen blocks up from the Garden, we had thousands of extra cops hanging around this week, and even if you like cops that's an eerie thing, especially with the flight of many citizens during the Convention further disturbing the usual police-civilian balance. The protest-related tensions made things weirder still. Customary disturbances like the tree-lighting at Rockefeller Center are one thing, but five days of virtual occupation are something else again. Now it's over, the barricades are coming down, and it feels like our New York again.

Matthew Yglesias admits that the Convention made him a little nuts*. I could say the same for myself. I normally enjoy visitors, and it was depressing to harbor a resentment toward so many of them, even if they are Republicans. (I don't hate Republicans, I just like it a lot better when they're not around.)

Well, they're gone now, and Labor Day weekend is upon us. Back to the usual tolerable tension levels.

*UPDATE. Here's a more eloquent account of RNC blues by Alex at Broken Type. (I don't think he's quite over it yet, though.) Thanks for the tip, Margaret.

MORE REASONS TO HATE OUR RECENTLY-EXPELLED OCCUPIERS. Reason #356: Even the Republican ass-sucking New York Post had to admit that the delegates were tight with a buck -- especially when it came to tipping.

This is of course the traditional difference between New Yorkers and outlanders on that subject; we figure, "If I can't afford to tip, I can't afford the restaurant"; they figure, "Ah spent too much on this here meal to give anything to that funny-boy what brung me mah food."

UPDATE. OK, that was unfair. Maybe RNC delegates are lousy tippers, but that doesn't apply to everyone from outside the zone. I worked in New York restaurants for a number of years, and old generalizations die hard. If you want to know who really doesn't tip, go here.

DOOR. ASS. FIGURE IT OUT. From the excellent if erratic Matt Yglesias, among the Republicans:

Overheard in a hotel lobby: "I get the feeling these New Yorker liverals just don't understand how 9-11 changed things. It's like they don't even remember it." (No, fuck you).

Could you hicks maybe catch an earlier flight out of town? Pretty fuck you please?

HOLY SHIT. I've given the Big Stiff a hard time in the past, but check him out now:

For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and even my fitness to serve as Commander in Chief. Well, here is my answer to them: I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and who misled the nation into Iraq... The Vice President even called me unfit for office last night. Well, I'm going to leave it up to the voters to decide whether five deferments makes someone more qualified than two tours of combat duty... Let me tell you in no uncertain terms what makes someone unfit for office and unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit for duty. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care for four years makes you unfit to lead this country. Letting the Saudi royal family control the price of oil for Americans makes you unfit to lead this country.

Give 'em Hell, Kerry.

BUSH SPEECH REVEALS THE KINDA SWEET THING ABOUT LILEKS:

Okay, part two is different. I kept thinking: 1943. Between the dark beginning and the first cracks of light. 1943.

Have you bowled? Then you know the guys who try to win by throwing the ball as hard as possible. They get bedposts. You want a strike, you roll it down the middle and curve off left or right at the last minute. Most of the pins go down. A few wobble, and look like they’ll remain standing. Then they fall, too.

“He said United States!” Gnat said while watching the speech. “We have that puzzle!” That we do, child. That we do.

The kinda sweet thing about Lileks is: for all his cultural references, he has yet to realize what self-parody is.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE. Scumbag ex-Mayor Giuliani is on the Letterman show, saying, between self-referential remarks, that the job he's most interested in now is "Manager of the New York Yankees."

Let us try to imagine it:

In the absence of a cabaret license, Manager Rudolf Giuliani bans "The Wave" from Yankee Stadium. Fans who attempt to start up the longtime ballpark favorite, and even those who merely wiggle in their seats, are arrested and quickly taken to holding facilities on Arthur Avenue. "It should have been done a long time ago," says boss George Steinbrenner.

Manager Giuliani orders fans not to allow their cheers to rise above 140 decibels. Waves of arrests follow. "A cruel man, but fair," says boss George Steinbrenner.

Manager Giuliani orders the arrest of hundreds of fans for flouting the Open Container Law. "Bad enough a beer costs eight bucks," says one spectator as he is beaten by police, "but this?" "Heads will be broken," says boss George Steinbrenner, "but if that's what it takes to win a pennant, okay."

With the Yankees trailing badly in the American League East, Manager Giuliani exercises his plenipotentiary powers to arrest Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez for pitching inside. "This is why we brought Giuliani to Yankee Stadium," says boss George Steinbrenner.

Manager Giuliani institutes Cheney Night at Yankee Stadium for a Yankees-Indians twi-night doubleheader. Ticketholders are required to sign a loyalty oath before entering the Stadium. "The man knows what he's doing," says boss George Steinbrenner. "Have you forgotten September 11?"

To couteract declining attendance at Yankee Stadium, Manager Giuliani ships in Rikers Island inmates to fill empty seats. In the seventh inning of a 10-1 Red Sox rout, Giuliani pulls Daryl Strawberry from the stands to pinch-hit. After Strawberry hits into a double play, Giuliani pleads with a judge to add five years to his sentence. "I loved that Strawberry kid," says a tearful boss George Steinbrenner afterwards. "But justice is justice."

Manager Giuliani has cost the Yankees over $100 million in legal fees and settlements in a single season of overturned arrests and resulting punitive damages. "Maybe I was wrong about Giuliani," says boss George Steinbrenner. "Maybe it's time to exhume the corpse of Billy Martin and strap it to the back of Sweet Lou Pinella."

Manager Giuliani announces that he is leading a team of Federal prosecutors looking into corruption charges against boss George Steinbrenner. "Nobody fucks with Rudy Giuliani," says the Manager, warning reporters that this is off the record.

PREZNIT SPEAKS. Well, it's 9/11 from the get-go. "A shaken economy rose to its feet.." Well, it's early yet.

"Americans have been given hills to climbs and found the strength to climb them... We will build a safer world... and nothing will hold us back." See, it's positive. Props to Cheney: "Calm and steady judgement.." Yeah, well, if he didn't keep it "calm and steady" his heart would pop out of his chest. "We love our First Lady.... two spirited and intelligent and lovely young women... sister and brothers... George and Barbara Bush..." Just like the Adamses.

"Federal education reform... nothing will hold us back." You don't have to help your kids learn, we'll learn 'em for you. "Honor America's seniors... Medicare... perscription drug coverage... nothing will hold us back." How about bankruptcy? "Largest tax relief in a generation... nothing will hold us back." Hey, where's my wallet? "Protect the American people... drift... will not happen on my watch." As opposed to the methodically planned-out course we're on now. "Build a safer world... compassionate conservative... steady, consistent, principled leadership..." Great! When do you start?

"Story of America is the story of American Liberty... reach further and include more... extend the frontiers of freedom.." I saw 10,000 cops on my way home. When do we get some? "Workers of our parents' generation typically had one job... often with one company... today workers change jobs, even careers, many times..." Yuh don't say. "Great opportunity..." If you say so. "Government must take your side." Please do! "Worker training... created for the world of yesterday... make your own choices..." If you have a choice. "A growing economy... global market... new competition... America must be the best place in the world to do business..." Hire this American worker! He's cheap! "Reducing regulation..." And he's gonna get even cheaper!

"Less dependent on foreign sources of foreign sources of energy..." Ha ha ha. "Explosion of frivolous lawsuits..." Got your guts sucked out by a pool pump? You get one dollar. "Bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the Federal Tax Code..." Wait, you mean there'll still be Democrats? "Job training... increase funding for our community colleges..." My wallet! "Compete with anyone, anywhere in the world..." Even Bangalore!

"Poor communities... lost manufacturing... American Opportunity Zones..." So it's an emergency? "Worried they cannot afford health care... uninsured... small companies.. purchase at the discounts available to big companies..." Buy in bulk, save even more. "Tax credit... health savings accounts... low-income Americans... security of insurance... tax-free... take your account with you..." Like COBRA -- which helped drive me into penury! "Insure every poor county in America... rural health center..." Wahl, hoss, you's sick, and you's fucked! Take this heah aspirin. "High cost of lawsuits... must pass Medical Liability reform now..." It's the lawyers' fault, see! Big Pharma is on your side, but John Edwards and his pool-suckin' lawsuits wants to fuck you over!

"Comp time and flex time... laws should never stand in the way of a more family-friendly workplace." Your wife will still have to work 60 hours a week. "Home ownership... all-time high... seven million affordable homes in the next ten years..." And seven decades of debt for each. "Ownership society..." Something to strive for! "Baby-boom generation... strengthen Social Secuirty... personal accounts... government can never take away..." Hey, the market dropped -- don't worry, government can never take away your remaining 11 dollars of coverage!

"More freedom and more control over your own life.." How Goldwater, not. "Your school will be the path to promise..." And we know what promises are worth. "Standards... results... local people are in charge of their schools..." Hey, sounds like Ocean Hill-Brownsville. "Record funding..." My wallet! Nice story about a poor, Hispanic school. "Soft bigotry of low expectations." See you kids in five years at the job center.

"Time of change... two years of college... one in four students gets there... early intervention... math and science..." But they can't spell! How -- "Vigorous exam... Pell Grants..." Oh. I get it -- money again. But my wallet's still missing.

"Lead an aggressive effort... government health insurance programs..." Please vote for us! We'll pay you! Not much, but -- "georgewbush.com" -- Does it have a bulletin board?

"Expanded opportunity... choice... my opponent..." Time for the "flipflop" thing. "Opposed... opposed..." The boos are coming up. "There are some things my opponent is for... federal spending... Senator from Massachusetts..." Why didn't he say 'Taxachusetts'? Missed a chance there! "Tax and spend, expanding government... politics of the past..." Where have I heard this before?

"Some things do not change... institutions... family commitment... welfare reform... that requires work..." You fucking bums, go starve. "Value its weakest members... unborn child..." Here's your red meat, hayseeds. "Religious charities... never discriminate against them..." Poor, persecuted Christians! "Man and woman... protection of marriage..." Gobble it up, hicks! "Continue to appoint Federal judges..." Yeah yeah.

"My opponent... if you say the heart and soul of America is found in Hollywood..." What the fuck? "Voted against the Federal Marriage Act... calling the Reagan Presidency eight years of moral darkness..." I see you Gomers need MORE RED MEAT! Heah be the shovels -- Feed! Feed!

"Continuing danger of terrorism..." Here we go. Convert text to Black Letter Gothic hereafter.

"September 11... ruins of the Twin Towers... workers and hard hats... 'Do not let me down'... wake up every morning... never relent... whatever it takes." My Pet Goat my ass motherfuckers! I'm the Big Dog now and you can shove your medals up your ass!

"Fought the terrorists... tripled funding... transforming... reforming... staying on the offensive... striking terrorism aborad..." And that's all the explanation you need.

"Pakistan... Afghanistan... Iraq... Al Qaeda...." Protestors on the floor. Let's wait for the ad lib. "Today the government of a free Afghanistan..." We gotta wait some more, I guess. "We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer... careful diplomacy... tough decisions... Iraq.." Tell us again, or for the first time. "September 11..." Ah, I see. "Confront threats to America before it is too late.... in Saddam Hussein we saw a threat..." More protestors? Jesus. "Including my opponent... voted to authorize... UN... leaders in the Middle East... a final chance... I faced the kind of decision that comes... must be prepared to make... Do I forget the lessons of September 11?" Well, what else is he going to give 'em? An explanation? "50 million people have been liberated... democracy is coming... intimidate people... Afghan.. 10 million citizens have registered to vote..." And their votes just might count! "Iraq... national elections... January..." There too!

"Free societies in the Middle East will be hopeful societies... free governments fight terrorists, and that helps us keep the peace." Better. "Move toward elections... then our troops will return home with the honor they have earned..." Which will be when? Date? Time? "Our troops... one Army specialist wrote home..." A letter from a serviceman is a poor substitute for a plan. "A superb job for America." Etc.

"... to all of them: you are involved in a struggle of historic proportion... people of Iraq no longer fear... the world is more just and will be more peaceful... our thanks... we will give you all the resources and all the tools and all the support you need for victory." Whatever, in this context, that might be.

"My opponent... $87 billion..." Time for the retard dance! "... 'before I voted against it'..." Haw haw. "...nothing complicated about supporting our troops in combat!" Boo yah! "Prime Mister Howard... Berlusconi... Blair..." Yay, good furriners! "MY opponent... 'coalition of the coerced and the bribed'..." He reads the list -- shorter than at the SOTU; it's a big night. "Deserve... not the scorn of a politician." See, when you edit him, he sounds more classy. "America will not forget." We'll send the Netherlands a bouquet. Not that that's a bribe!

"Seven Iraq men came to see me..." The one-handed guys -- a good choice. "A Prayer for God to bless America.... the hope for the oppressed..." Banking on our soft hearts for the underprivileged -- overseas, anyway. "Radical ideology of hate... kill the innocent... fighting freedom... all their cunning and cruelty... freedom is on the march.... wiser use of American strength is to promote freedom... example will send a message of hope... Palestinians... peace with our good friend Israel." See, Kerry forgot that bit. "Young women... their day of equality..." W is for women. "...dream of freedom... America will be more secure and the world more peaceful." Or maybe W is for wistful?

"There've always been doubters. In 1946... New York Times wrote this..." A comparison to the Iraq occupation. "Maybe that same person is around writing editorials." Ha ha. Fuckin' New York Slimes! Real patriots read thuh pennysaver an' maybe some books by Tom Clancy! "Because that generation of Americans..." The Greatest Generation, we need not add. "...safer world today." See, Iraq is just like WWII. Only you need jokes to prove it.

"Settlers on perilous journey... colonies to rebellion... aid the rise of Germany, Japan... noble story goes on... lead the cause of freedom... millions in the Middle East plead in silence for freedom... freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty's gift..." Very pretty. If only you could believe the guy.

"Seize this moment and used it to build... future secuirty... depend on us... stand with me." Well, who else? That flipflop guy? This'n will keep queers from marryin' each other!

"Last four years you and I have come to know each other... you know what I believe... I have a few flaws... correct my English... Schwarzenegger..." Haw. "A certain swagger, which in Texas is called 'walking.'" First good joke of the night. "A little too blunt..." It ain't braggin' if you pretend it's self-deprecation!

"Tried to comfort Americans who lost the most on September 11... learned firsthand that ordering Americans into battle... returned the salute of soldiers... held the children... met with parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag... how can people so burdened with sorrow also feel such pride?... liberty was precious to the one they lost." Not bad. Peggy write it? "Three miles from here... lifted a flag over the ruins... for as long as our country stands... resurrection of New York City... here a nation rose."

This, of course, is why they came to New York: to soak up the blood and feed on it.

"Our military... veterans... young people... heroes... workers and entrepreneurs... optimism... having come this far, our tested and confident nation can achieve anything.... to everything we know, there is a season... now we have reached the time for hope." I know what I'm hoping for.

"Safer world... liberty at home... a calling from beyond the stars..." In a galaxy far, far away, Luke Skywalker battles heavy-breathing military man, but prevails because he has the Force and the wisdom of a gnome called Rova.

"Grateful for our freedom... confident... may God bless etc. etc."

Somewhere David Brooks is kissing his ass. Thanks be to God it's over, and please leave our City as soon as possible.

BULLHORN, BASEBALL, AND BULLSHIT. George Pataki is giving 9/11 thanks to Bush, America, et alia on behalf of New York -- New York State, that is. This is like what Pataki does in the "I Love New York" campaign -- tell the country that, sure, the City's nice, but Poughkeepsie, Peeksill (where he's from), and Podunk (yes, we do have a Podunk) are every bit as important. Piggybacking, cultural and economic, is his stock in trade.

The "flip-flop" chant seems to energize this crowd, as the Tomahawk Chop energizes Braves fans, and seems already to be every bit as tiresome.

Another fake New Yorker, Fred Thompson, narrates a Bush film: "What do a bullhorn and a baseball have in common?" Let's puzzle over this mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma a while as we wait for The Leader to speak...

AROUND TOWN. After a long day at work I went over to see how the protests were going. The City wasn't making it easy to reach the intake point of the ANSWER march at 31st and 8th. I went down 8th Avenue to 34th, where I was blocked; cut down 9th, and found no access at 31st. On to 10th Avenue. People carrying signs, looking around. People on cell phones: "They're making us walk down. Probably to 23rd Street." Guys lounging in front of the Verizon building. One yelled, "If y'all stood up in 2000, you coulda got ridda the motherfucker then." Tons of cops, cop cars, cop bikes, cop motorbikes, cop scooters, cop trucks, and undercover cops (and something I'd never seen -- an AMTRAK police van).

Finally at 10th and 26th Street I got to turn with a bunch of people with signs ("You on strike?" asked some neighborhood kids) onto 8th, where I could see about 300 protestors massed five blocks uptown, hooting and waving signs and listening to a recording of "War (What Is It Good For)," and a huge maze of police gates lining and clogging the streets behind them. It looked like a trap.

Next stop Union Square. Most of the police were massed on surrounding blocks; the 50 or 60 cops on the scene were hanging loose. It reminded me of a cross between the old Avenue C thieves' market and the old Tompkins Square. The south end was mobbed -- at least as many bodies as I saw uptown, in a much smaller space -- mostly with youngsters, chatting and chanting, surrounded by merch tables with anti-Bush stickers and T-shirts (a simple Bush-face-with-"no"-logo was the most popular item; others employed swastikas to make their point). Near a little carpet of abandoned signs ("I am marching for my grandmother and she is PISSED"), a fellow sitting in a lawn chair held a sign commemorating Jesus A. Suarez del Solar, killed in Iraq. The man said Jesus was his son, and he was there waiting for Bush to tell him when the troops were coming home.

On the other side of 14th Street, hundreds of people were milling, eyes on the Square, waiting to see what came next. One guy was practicing break-dance moves on the sidewalk.

A little further north on the Square people lounged at picnic tables, and strolled under the trees. A boy and girl in ratty denims sat cross-legged and very close together on the pavement against a low wall, out of the light, talking softly. All around, bars and restaurants did a brisk trade, and streams of passers-by headed home from work.

SHORTER TACITUS: Why do these New Yorkers insist on reciprocating my obvious contempt?

CHENEY SPEAKS. I guess you have to be a Republican to get anything out of this. I keep waiting for the Powerpoint presentation. Wasn't he livelier four years ago? Maybe the teleprompter has a warning light hooked up by WiFi to his pacemaker, and Dick's trying not to hit the red.

I'm outta here. Let me know if he has a stroke or something.

CRANKY AS ZELL. Since when is Abe Simpson a Demmycrat? And I see he's trumped Schwarzenegger's Nixon ref by citing Wendell Willkie. I hope we have time for a Herbert Hoover panegyric before this Convention's over.

Zell intimates that America would cease to be a free country if Kerry is elected. Good Lord. How did we get through eight years of Clinton without gulags? If the election doesn't go his way, will Zell take to the woods with his shootin' ahrn?

He strikes me as nuts. Of course, I think Arnold's speech was better suited to a WWF cage match than a political convention. I suppose history may prove me wrong, if we have history.

BOO HOO, THEY HATE US AGAIN. The Right's narrative of the moment is that we New Yorkers have been just awful to our RNC guests:

Many New Yorkers seem to feel that they have to do everything possible to tell the delegates, and the world at large, that they hate Republicans...

Shortly after Sept. 11 -- I mean for like two seconds -- New York was as American and determined as any other town. That seems like an eternity ago. It is barely a dream.

In a way this development is comforting. I imagine it was part of the Republicans' original plan in coming here to represent us citizens to the rest of America as grateful beneficiaries of the GOP's post-9/11 leadership. Obviously that isn't gonna play, so now we are being called ingrates.

Of course this, too, could be a winning strategy for the Bushites. It is very shrewd of the President to accept the Firefighters' endorsement in Queens tonight. Our most popular cop shows, after all, portray New York as a city of skels, held in check only by the nobility and righteousness of cops and firemen, and America may be comforted by the idea that, though Gotham's residents rail against their leader, its uniformed ubermenschen respect his authority.

But at least they understand, if only dimly, that when we say no, we mean no. Though they are perfectly welcome to come back when they stop consecrating their candidates with the blood of our fallen in causes we disdain.

"MOMENTS -- MOMENTS --" There is, too, substantive posting by RNC bloggers! In addressing the Ed Schrock thing (Republican gets outed, quits), GOP blogger Slant Point explains homosexuality:

But really, the gay label is way too simplistic. Each side treats it like an either or, when in fact the truth may be that more and more Americans are engaging in bisexual moments -- moments -- as a result of sexual addictions.

So while the gay community will point to hypocrisy -- the numerous quotes from Schrock's past demonstrate an opposition to the leading efforts of gay activism -- we may simply be seeinng a man who took a sexual problem too far.

This, by God, is a unique approach to the GOP's gay rights issue: there are no gays, no straights -- only sex addicts, experiencing bisexual moments.

Slant Point had previously announced, "My message too will be Republican, but not just for America -- I aim to change NYC itself." If that post is an example of his schtick, I think we can afford to be charitable, and wish him luck.

BUT YOU ARE, BLANCHE, YOU ARE! "I guess I'm feeling a little like a flak for the Republican Party." -- Roger L. Simon

FREE MARKETS, FREE BAR. The RNC has caused a widespread outbreak of bullshit fever. Over at Reason -- you know, the "libertarian" magazine? -- you can read photo funnies about how hilarious it is when cops beat/arrest protestors. Those wacky free marketeers! They love freedom, but hate hippies worse.