Bread and Special Circuses, by Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia – Pop Art… and Chris #16
March 24, 2009 Arthur Tebbel & Chris Toia 11 Comments
Dear Art and Chris,
Last week on Jay Leno’s network, President Barack Obama gaffed, saying during an interview on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno that his average score of 129 in bowling, “was like the Special Olympics or something.” Even though President Obama apologized to Special Olympics Commissioner Tim Shriver before the interview even aired, the scandal persists. You guys are famous for apologizing for things you don’t care about and never thought were wrong anyway; tell me how to make this go away.
-Bill Burton, White House Deputy Press Security
Bill,
We’re sorry you thought we were good at fake apologizes. If it’s any consolation we feel terrible about this. See, it’s that easy. Book Obama on one of those softball throwing politics shows like Meet the Press with David Gregory. When David asks President Obama if he’s sorry about his gaffe, Obama responds, I’m sorry that people were offended by my comment. It was, frankly, retarded of me to say that. Oh shit, can we edit that? We’ll get it in post.” Then David will smile and the scandal is squashed. Either that or you can set up a media event where a handicapped person beats Obama at bowling, and like every time Obama misses a spare, a different ‘tard gets to throw a pie at his face.
We’re sorry for the previous paragraph, we didn’t intend for it to be insensitive towards the mentally handicapped. We’re sympathetic towards the difficulty the retarded might have understanding our jokes and we’re sorry that they’ll never be able to get it. See? All better.
Bill we’ll be frank with you we don’t really intend on providing you with a solution. Your problem is indicative of a systemic ill, solving your smaller problem won’t help fix what’s really wrong. Right now we are a nation filled with a populist rage. We’re mad that we used to have money and now we don’t. We’re mad that the rich are still rich. We’re also, apparently, mad that our President isn’t all that funny. Anger has its place especially at times like these, but instead of the kind of grassroots anger that has led to real change in the past, today’s anger is being conducted and led by the same people we should be pissed at. The same congress that gave AIG $170 billion without asking what it would be used for is now so righteously indignant that they’re asking for the names of those that received the bonuses to be made public. None of these things are actually important. The people who stood to be most offended by Obama’s comment seem to have accepted his apology and $165 million means absolutely nothing to our government. Both are distractions from real issues.
Here’s the rub, last Friday, the same day congress passed their ridiculous 90% bonus tax, the same day as Republicans were feigning righteous indignation towards Obama, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner released a plan to save the banks by printing 1.25 trillion dollars in new money in order to buy up bad debt. While it is certainly possible that this could further stabilize a number of banks it poses a sizable threat to the state of our currency. Here’s a problem that rage won’t fix, the plan is nowhere near the kind of plan that anyone could expect from the world’s brightest and it certainly doesn’t seem to have the best interest of the often talked about ‘Main Street’ at heart. The scope and scale of this plan will play with nearly 10,000 times the amount of money involved in the AIG bonuses and the aftereffects of it will resonate for long after President Obama’s Jay Leno interview is no longer available on YouTube. Our anger is being used against us. We become upset and then someone is punished but our rage is blinding us to the real issues we should be concerned about. If we’ve become blind then we’re playing handicapped, and this is no time to act retarded.
Martha Thomases
March 24, 2009 - 7:43 am
Talk about putting the “con” in economics. Why hasn’t Bill Maher hired you guys?
pennie
March 24, 2009 - 8:04 am
How about Chris Dodd?
He REALLY needs a fast make-over…
Kyle Baker
March 24, 2009 - 9:20 am
This is all just a smokescreen to distract us from the real problem; The Special Olympics. Many of the athletes are on drugs, and use all kinds of non-regulation equipment like wheelchairs and artificial limbs just so they can win.
I saw a recent Special Olympic gold medalist being interviewed, and he was TOTALLY slurring his speech.
They call themselves “non-profit”. That’s just another word for Socialism!
Great article, guys! Keep it up!
Mike Gold
March 24, 2009 - 2:02 pm
God, you guys do not want to work for Bill Maher. Maybe if the choice was between him and Roseanne Barr, but even Bill’s upfront about how badly he treats writers. As for Roseanne, my story about her is a lot longer.
Pennie, Dodd’s a good man and it’s sad to see all his great work be dismissed because of this AIG thing. He’s also very, very responsive to the electorate. I’ve worked with him on saving Head Start and, while I had a lot of contact with his appropriate staff member (Dinah Washington; no kidding!), I also had a lot of contact with Dodd himself. He even flew in to give some focus on a couple events that were important to our efforts.
As opposed to Connecticut’s other senator, Mr. Droopy Cocksucker.
pennie
March 24, 2009 - 3:58 pm
@MG (sorry, couldn’t resist. always loved that car)…
I respect what you say about Dodd. I have a friend whose husband worked for/with CD for years and Teri never fails to remind me that Dodd was among the first to support Obama, as did Larry.
I know from the record CD has accomplished so much for so many, But, right now he illustrates my point from the recent past. It is so hard to maintain integrity. He’s no Gov Rowland with kickbacks and hot tubs…but how does one characterize all those “campaign contributions” from such tarnished sources?
These latest memory lapses just make Dodd appear to be another shameless slick politico who got caught. He’s better than that–which is why I sorta suggested the awesome talents of our cherubic duo…
(aside: don’t these guys make enough to afford their own additions and hot tubs without sneaking around? It boggles the mind…).
Mike Gold
March 25, 2009 - 5:56 am
Dodd’s no Governor Rowland, Bridgeport Mayor Ganim, or Waterbury Mayor Giordano — for one thing, Dodd’s not in prison.
And to think I had to move from Illinois to get this level of statesmanship.
Better Dead Than Red
March 25, 2009 - 10:40 am
Mike Wrote: “Pennie, Dodd’s a good man and it’s sad to see all his great work be dismissed because of this AIG thing.”
Hmmm…Just this AIG thing? You can’t be serious.
Does the company, “Countrywide” ring a bell? How about “Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac”?
You’re in Chicago, Mike. So, you should also realize that, in his era, among the people of the city. ‘Ol Scarface was considered a bit of a hero due to the soup kitchens, and so forth, that he set up to “help the masses”. So, was Al Capone a great man? Should all that “humanitarianism” be “diminished” because of all that “mob business”?
@Pennie: You are completely correct, in that Dodd, is “another shameless slick politico who got caught”. There will be many more to follow, mark my words.
@Kyle… LMFAO!!!! Comedy Gold, sir.
Mike Gold
March 25, 2009 - 12:40 pm
Actually, Red, I left Chicago 23 years ago, but I am something of a Chicago history expert, and I can authoritatively say that Capone was not anything of a hero in the city. Yes, there’s that oft-played clip of some wino at a soup kitchen praising Al, but here’s the facts:
His beer sucked. His beer was overpriced. His gamboling was fixed. His hookers, well, that’s where Al got the clap. He was publicly violent — as was his only competition, the O’Bannion/Moran gang — and a lot of innocents got caught up in the violence.
He had a lot of good will among people on his payroll, including some politicians, cops, and reporters but even that was completely squandered on February 14, 1929. After that, the man was openly hated.
Whereas the Depression started at the end of that year, it really didn’t get to be The Great Depression until after Capone was tried for tax evasion — he pled guilty in June of 1931, rescinded his plea and was subsequently convicted in October of that same year. Despite legend, he didn’t build a whole lot of soup kitchens and never had the support of the people who weren’t in his employ during the Depression.
I realize that your politics are such that you would regard liberal Dodd as evil, but he’s done an enormous amount of good work and some (perhaps much) of what you consider foul I consider praise-worthy. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did a lot of good in its day; deal with it. It needed oversight, the sort of oversight that Bush and the Republicans and the neo-cons and the Objectivists loathed.
But I’ll trade you Dodd’s involvement in Countrywide and AIG for Neal Bush and John McCain’s involvement in the S&L scandal any day of the week.
As for “slick politicians going to jail,” well, the way things are shaping up there’s a lot of Republicans who better start designing their tattoos.
Better Dead Than Red
March 25, 2009 - 2:35 pm
Mike, I guess you didn’t understand my meaning, by your reply of…
“I realize that your politics are such that you would regard liberal Dodd as evil”
and
“I’ll trade you Dodd’s involvement in Countrywide and AIG for Neal Bush and John McCain’s involvement in the S&L scandal any day of the week”
With regard to that “offer” I would say… Sure, so long as all of them rot in jail. Just like we would, if we did such things.
I am not partisan, I loathe ALL politicians that look out for themselves and their “party” or “position of power” and never have to serve jail-time, all the while, these “points of pain” are swept under the rug, “for the good of the party”.
BAH! A pox on all of them!
I am physically sickened by the fact that we the people, are stuck within the sticky wicket of a “two party system” who happen to own ALL major media outlets, and in many occasions…Elections in general.
Mike Gold
March 25, 2009 - 5:04 pm
Well, we certainly agree on that. The two party system is right there in the Constitution, next to the right to privacy. Nothing worse ever happened to this country than the calcification of the two party system. And there’s little that’s less democratic.
However, I don’t think the parties own all the major media outlets. Evidently, you’re opinion of the media is higher than mine. I firmly believe the media are little more than a gaggle of crack whores willing to suck off whomever waves money in front of their faces. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again: NBC would give Adolf Hitler The Tonight Show if they thought Hitler could get one sharepoint more than Conan O’Brien. And they’ll say “that’s obviously what the people want.”
pennie
March 26, 2009 - 12:23 pm
@Mike,
“NBC would give Adolf Hitler The Tonight Show if they thought Hitler could get one sharepoint more than Conan O’Brien. And they’ll say “that’s obviously what the people want.” ”
On the money.
CBS would counter with The Spanish Inquisition replacing Letterman followed the next morning by ABC showing wall-to-wall, whip-around coast-to-coast live executions with on-screen voting for injections, hanging, electrocution or stoning.
Watch the Neilsens rock…}’;>0