[sic]

Is the former first lady, current senator from New York and recently announced presidental candidate so ashamed of her last name that she won’t even put it on her campaign graphics? Is there actual concern among her managers that drawing attention to “Clinton” might be detrimental to her chances. Did she or they stop to consider that to so obviously try not to draw attention to it might seem laughably boneheaded?

For the first time in years I tuned in this morning to what had once been a television never-miss: “CBS Sunday Morning” with Charles Osgood. I’d been a fan since deep into its days hosted by the great Charles Kuralt. If I wasn’t quite sure why I had strayed away and for so long I found out this morning, which would’ve been no different from the past couple hundred Sundays had Susan not decided she wanted to see it and turned on the last 20 minutes or so of the 90-minute program.

We saw an interesting piece on Bob Seger’s return to the stage, which reminded me how much I missed the show, but that was then followed by a commentary by Ben Stein which reminded me why the weekend staple was no longer on my TV viewing plate. Shoe-horned onto my screen was Stein feeling the imperative to smack back at the “untrustworthy” media that jumped all over and up and down upon Duhbya after his state of the union address last week. In foisting upon me his opinion that the presididn’t isn’t all that bad and certainly not worth being called irrelevant and insignificant and lame by apparently every newsroom pundit in America and Merle Haggard, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Stein so worked up — certainly never on his silly game show and not since that Beuhler kid decided to take the day off from school.

At the beginning he said:

“The media is staging a coup against Mr. Bush, just the way they did against LBJ and Nixon and tried to do against Reagan. They cannot impeach Bush because only Congress can do that. But the media is doing what it can to basically oust Mr. Bush while still leaving him lifting weights in the White House.”

And at the end:

“But no one elected the media to anything. In the TV studios and newsrooms, there is a lynch mob at work. Let’s see it for what it is. Mr. Bush is the only President we have, and, with all his faults, I trust him a lot more than I trust the unelected princes and princesses of the newsroom.

In between and for whatever reason he took a potshot against alleged media darling and legendary singer Merle Haggard who “knows nothing of what’s up in America right now,” and he intimated that it was unfair to hurl arrows at BushCo for the Iraq debacle because he wasn’t the first leader of our nation to make big mistakes. “What about Vietnam? What about Korea?” Stein asks.

No doubt those are Clinton’s faults, too.

Stein cites the country’s economic boomtimes and staggering employment and the spotlessness of there being no terrorist attacks on this country since 9/11. True enough. How convenient though, that Stein had nothing to say about the continuing disaster of post-Katrina New Orleans — but hey, grating minds think alike: Duh-bya in all his questionable relevance saw that debacle as nationally irrelevant and unworthy of mention either. Stein also seems to conveniently focus his narrow field of vision on some strange media revolt occuring, when in fact the true and inarguable coup came last November when the majority of the people of these United States rose up in protest with their votes. Stein has nothing to say about that, though. The media is a far easier target to poke at than those millions of us that poked our ballots in disgust.

Via an outlet of the very media he disdains, Stein exclaims his trust of Duh-bya far exceeds that of the populations of American newsrooms. I give that a yikes, but he is certainly entitled to his opinion — just as I’m entitled to hope I go the rest of my life without hearing anything else half-baked that he might have to say. Looks like as long as I stay away from what once was my favorite TV program, I’ll be able to do that.

Wonkette is reporting that The Hill’s Congress Blog is reporting and the Washington Post is reporting that during a private post-election reception at the White House for the new batch of freshmen members of Congress a couple weeks ago things got a bit chilly quick between Presididn’t Duhbya and narrowly victorious Senator-Elect James Webb of Virginia.

According to the Post the exchange went like this:

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, refering to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

The Hill states that an unidentified source said that for as coldly as it ended, Webb got pretty hot under the collar:

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

I’m certainly glad and relieved that it didn’t come to blows, and frankly as pleased as I am about the election of Webb and every other Republican’t-replacing Dem and how it’s made BushCo. squirm, is it too much to ask for Webb just to know when to hold ‘em for a cotton-pickin’ second? Going into a reception and spouting “bring-’em-home” at the first inopportunity strikes me as a weeee bit amateurish.

Webb would’ve been better served telling Duhbya that his son is making the best of a tough situation and leaving it at that. But in the presence of such a lack of decorum, after Georgie snapped back at his response what Webb should have said was, “Mr. Bush, you don’t care about my son or getting out of Iraq. So spare me.”

* The French phrase “L’esprit de l’escalier” literally translates to “the spirit of the staircase,” and can refer to the perfect spirited response you think up after a conversation or argument has ended.
This explanation was adapted from the excellent blog The Wit Of The Staircase.

It seems the world will be swinging around today to smooch Duhbya’s suddenly eco-friendly left buttcheek in the wake of his watching a Cousteau film and then turning a whole buncha water into a protected national monument… and even in my abject distaste for the preznit I gotta admit when I read about the act this morning it initially plucked my heartstrings almost as proud as the remarkable speech he read before Congress after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Keyword: initially.

But my distaste and distrust for the dude eventually rushes back in to fill the void and I’m left doubting his motives. Not that it wasn’t a respectable thing he did saving a whole lotta fishes and birds and coral (nevermind that they weren’t under all that much of a threat to begin with), but let’s face it a 1,200-mile by 100-mile strip of water out in the middle of the Pacific is a long way away and it way ain’t no arctic refuge. This new safety zone may be an area bigger than all other national parks combined, but the amount of foot traffic the place will see is pretty much limited to water walkers like say… oh: Jesus?

Is it my bad that I sense this earth-first about-face as a mollifying tactic to manuever approval ratings upward? Maybe, but hey I’m just a product of the environment of doubt that Duhbya’s cultivated — which means that I can’t help but think he and his peeps didn’t first extensively vet things through to make doubly sure there weren’t any resources undah dah watah there that might someday be potentially worth exploiting.

I’m glad Tony Pierce can see the humor in Martini Republic’s chiding of him for “failing” to dive LAist into the exclamated blogoblather brewed up over the inevitable eviction of the croppers from Ralph Horowitz’s property yesterday. It took me a second read to get the sense that it was a good-natured jab, and still only somewhat.

I suppose like a good southpaw I should just be righteously indignant that these little people who worked the land and made something of nothing were so summarily and inconsiderately given the boot, but I’m finding it hard to blame Horowitz for his actions, or to consider him the bad guy in all this. I’m waaaay more inclined to look back a couple years and point my middle finger at the city itself for putting the property up for sale in the first place.

In the L.A. Times article today, Horowitz is quoted as saying that he was fed up with the insults and the legal battles and all the bullshit and even if the farmers or their benefactors had come up with $50 million he would have told them all to go to hell. Frankly, I don’t blame him one bit.

Sure, it would be far easier to accept if it were a homeless encampment being disbanded from some derelict wastefield, but instead it’s a plot of land so infused with the symbolism of self-sufficiency, cooperation, hope and renewal. It was from the ashes of the horrible 1992 riots that this site rose to flourish with life and sustenance brought forth by the hands and hearts of its area residents. And now that’s all going away to be replaced by warehouses.

It’s easy to despise that end result, but again I don’t blame the land’s lord. Nor do I blame the people who worked that land (though I think they’re playing the exploited card a weeeeeeee bit too hard). Neither do I go on without saying it is far more complex an issue than to boil it down to the city as the bad guy. Nevertheless whoever over at City Hall back in 2003 failed to recognize the importance of this agricultural cooperative and instead orchestrated and architected the sale of a whole lotta heart and soul for a few million dollars is the entity that gets my enmity.

And now that we’re in the post-game Mayor Villaraigosa, it would really be best if you would stop your whining about Horowitz being the roadblock to the farm’s survival because he refused to take the way late bait.

The Midnight Ridazz route brought us around the farm and its tenants last Friday night.

Well no shit. But in regards to terrorism and me personally, the world has never been the same since I was introduced to the word and its horror via the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

I can remember being eight years old and watching the games with my friend Suzuki Karlowitz in her parents’ apartment. As her mom and dad were Austrian and regularly conversed in the background with each other in German, it somehow made things more authentic… as if I was there instead of thousands of miles away. I can remember being inspired by the pageantry and spectacle of a world coming together to peacefully coexist and compete under the magnificent Olympic flame and the majextic waving banner of the five olympic rings. I whistled and sang the Olympic theme music constantly. I thrilled and filled with pride watching Mark Spitz conquer all. I fell in love with Olga Korbut.

Then he arrived…

…and all the joy and triumph was destroyed and replaced by that evil demon who I watched prowl the balcony of that Olympic Village building on television and in the front pages of newspapers. From there he took up residence in my mind. He became the monster in my closet and the troll under my bed and the stranger in the shadows as I walked home from the park. He thrived in my nightmares wherein he would always be leaning over the balcony looking specifically for me. I could only stand frozen as his searching would ultimately lead his head to slowly turn in my direction and those black evil eyes would lock on me and his hands would reach out and I would only wake up and escape the exact moment before he grabbed me. In a mad dash I would be in my mom’s room sniffling. “Bad dreams again?” She’d ask and I’d whimper out a “Yes mommy” and she’d sigh and pull back the covers and let me crawl in next to her. Safe.

But not really. It was hard for an L.A. kid to ever feel completely safe — especially in the 1970s. I learned about countries like Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam. Charles Manson was in captivity, but his “family” was at-large and everywhere. And if war and murder weren’t enough, the year before Munich I’d experienced proof that nothing is permanent via the Sylmar quake. And after the summer of 1972 came the Symbionese Liberation Army who I was sure any day was going to kidnap me while walking to Horace Mann elementary school in Beverly Hills — not to mention Watergate and its spooky “burglars” ultimately leading to the disgrace and resignation of Richard Nixon. Mix in some mythical and mysterious black panthers and factor in the skidrow slasher and the hillside strangler a couple years later — don’t forget about the Revered Jim Jones! — and it ain’t too hard to see why I somewhat scoff when the president endlessly uses 9/11 as the line of demarkation.

Bush, the only thing that changed after that horrible day were the rules of engagement, or lack thereof.

I was listening to the post State of the Union commentary on CBS hoping to get the distaste of Duhbya’s speech out of my head, but instead tuned it out after one of the talking heads issued a different take on a key moment during the proceedings.

For me, the highlight of the hour-long remarks came when Bush made the reprimanding statement to the legislators along the lines of “you didn’t pass my social security package last year,” to which the democrats suddenly and unexpectedly launched to their feet in a loud standing ovation.

I’ll admit it: I giggled with glee at the slap. I giggled even more gleefully when Bush pursed up his lips in discontent, and then shot back with a moderately petulant “well you’ll be sorry now that we got all these babyboomers busting into retirement, huh?”

As if his “reform” package was the answer. Pffft.

But then along had to come CBS’ Washington correspindent ™ afterward and twirl the little victory away from me with some fishing analogy along the lines of Duhbya casting out the Social Security reference as bait that the big dumb democratic fishies swallowed hook, line and sinker for Bush to then reel them in with a call for unity.

Nice try whoever the hell you were. Some of us saw it as Duhbya throwing a stick of dynamite into the water too close to the boat and then getting soaked in the sploosh. The look on his face at the rebuke wasn’t of some bass fisherman’s wide-eyed pride at setting the hook. It was more like the look Quint had on his mug as the shark from Jaws gobbled him up.

Anyway, enough with the fish. The speech wasn’t long in getting back on track. He ended a few more sentences with “freedom,” the worn-out queue for everyone to applaud, tied the “you’re still either with me or against me” subtext up with an all-too-scripted and insincere call for bipartisanship, and winked and nodded at either freshly minted Justice Alito or his wife or a fuming Sen. Clinton enough times during all the clapping to make me gag.

All in though, I’d rank it as perhaps the second best speech of his Duhbya-ship, behind the one he read to Congress after Sept. 11. If nothing else, he didn’t say “noo-kya-lur” once. That alone makes it a success.