I’ve got a bit of start on entering Washington Post’s “Next Great Pundit” competition. I decided to write as a crazed Liebercrat who is anti-Obama but is obsessed with the idea of appeasement. I need a lot of help. Ideally, the thing sound good with lots of little catchy sound bites, but make as little actual sense as possible. Also, is anyone willing to send it under their name? I have a friend here who will do it, but I’m not sure his profile is what they are looking for. Here’s what I have so far for my essay — it is *very* rough and only maybe a quarter finished. A lot you should be much better at this than I am, so please pitch in if you’re so inclined with suggestions, rewrites, etc.
———
Slouching Towards Munich
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate
intensity” Yeats wrote a few years after the close of what was then
called the Great War. The war we are now engaged in has yet to be
given a name and is more Hobbesian all-against-all than Yeatsian
good-against-evil, but otherwise circumstances are much the same.
Obama is among the best, of that there is no doubt. He is reason
incarnate, silver-tongued, and unquestionably well-meaning. But there
is a lack of conviction. Abroad our enemies and ostensible
allies pay us little heed. North Korea and Iran are building nuclear
arsenals. Russia thumbs its nose at our proclamations about freedom
and free markets. At home extremists on both sides — birthers and
truthers, tea partiers and foul-mouthed bloggers, Keith Olbermann and
Glenn Beck — dominate the discourse as never before. In Congress,
unions and insurance companies control the fate of health care
legislation, while the administraion is silent and the fiscally
prudent are silenced.
Appeasement goes by many names and by any, it tastes as bitter…
More interested in apprehending Roman Polanski than Osama Bin Laden….
ricky
I like it so far but I would leave the part about Roy Hobbs out. Too many people saw The Natural and know his injury was not war related. You might also throw something in about anonymous bloggers spoiling the non partisan apple bobbing.
Comrade Jake
Why not just cut and paste a couple of BOB’s posts?
arguingwithsignposts
Where’s the part about bi-partisanship?
smiley
Might I suggest: Shakespeare wrote , in Romeo and Juliet, “What’s in a name? That by which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Gertrude Stine later paraphrased that as, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” Appeasement goes by many names and by any, it tastes as bitter. But appeasement is appeasement is appeasement.
lol
More interested in apprehending Roman Polanski than Osama Bin Laden, the President’s policy in Afghanistan has set course for disaster. The failure of the administration to articulate a clear plan to eliminate the last few holdouts of the Taliban regime is likely to strand us in this Middle Eastern desert in a war we cannot win. His Chamberlain-esque indecision is destined to make Afghanistan Obama’s Vietnam.
In the same fashion, his unwillingness to follow the roots of terror in Iran and North Korea…
sfbevster
The negligence and amorality of the Clinton administration laid the foundations for the swampy morass that has become Afghanistan.
smiley
@smiley: If I could have added to that I would have added, “Or something like that to add to the false impression of scholarship.’
Zifnab
Hehe. This is good entertainment, at the least.
But if you win, what on earth are you going to do with twenty six hundred dollars? That’s a lot of money for someone in the peasant class.
geg6
I’d be happy to put it under my name, Doug, but I’m afraid the elitist academic credentials would give the game away. If they do any due diligence at all on the entrants, that is.
lol
I think the key point is to attack Obama for not staying to get the terrorists in Afghanistan (so that he’s an APPEASER) while flaying him for escalating the conflict there (VIETNAM!).
Joey Maloney
I’m afraid I can’t help you. Or rather I could but it would be pointless since I’m convinced Thers has already produced the winning entry.
Dreggas
More interested in apprehending Roman Polanski than Osama Bin Laden…
…Obama is clearly trying to gird himself against criticism that he may be objectively pro-child molester given who he has appointed to a role in the department of education, someone who may or may not have looked the other way when a student who was 16 or maybe 15, as some people say, confessed to a relationship with a much older man.
Midnight Marauder
I like what happens if you make the subtle change from this:
to this:
Sounds more pure Lieberdem to this guy, at least.
General Winfield Stuck
You have way too much time on your hands, but the lumping of Olbermann in with Beck and the tea baggers was a nice touch. I would go with the risque approach of pointing out while it’s a good thing we have a negro presnit for the first time to escape our racist past, is it really worth it in these times of trouble to agitate our southern countrymen who we need to meet the challenges we face with all the swarthy enemies at our front door, not to mention the spectre of soshulism at home being so divisive and all. A little concern trolling from hell, if you wish.
ironranger
DougJ, either you are BoB or you have overdosed reading BoB comments.
smiley
@smiley: I also would have spelled Stein correctly.
beltane
Remember to use the word “comity”. They eat that shit up. Plus, it has the advantage of sounding like “vomit”, which is the end effect of reading too many WaPo opinion pieces.
bobbo
This is brilliant stuff. If you had asked me to guess which well known columnist this was, I would have gone for the Mustache of Understanding.
demkat620
Appeal to David Broder directly.
freelancer
I love these workshop projects. It’s like textual anarchy. The system is fucked, so lets have a little fun.
Mumphrey
If “foul mouthed bloggers” is meant in honor to David Broder, then you’ll want to word it just as he did: “foul mouthed vituperative bloggers”. I know he’d be proud.
David
Some inspiration:
“[W]e are facing tough challenges in America with some seeming to just be Hell bent maybe on tearing down our nation, perpetuating some pessimism, and suggesting American apologetics, suggesting perhaps that our best days were yesterdays.”
~from Sarah Palin’s Farewell speech
Little Macayla's Friend
Off to a great start, sounds weighty, but nothing said.
@ “The war we are now engaged in has yet to be
given a
name” to “. . given an epitaph”.And generally, wherever there are pronouns, there are opportunities.
And is “tea baggers” under the radar?
BombIranForChrist
I was going to go the whole New York Times route and write analysis using flamboyant analogies that lead nowhere:
“Obama’s healthcare proposal is like a Noel Coward dinner cruise that just ran out of Pinot Noir before the truffle flan extracted olfactory metastasis from the essential oils, leading one critic to quickly wield an asparagus spear and shout “suck on this” before being showed to his quarters.”
Or perhaps I will just write a bunch of shit that is wrong.
Either way, I have a shot, now that dude from Bueller is gone.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
put in something about how:
“Obama’s Benthamite instincts are leading him down the garden path of micromanaging the conflict in Afghanistan from the White House. In doing this he is ignoring the most important lesson of America’s last successful war of counterinsurgency, when the great Teddy Roosevelt had the courage to ignore the messy details of what was necessary to tame the Philippines, secure in his own prior experience of combat that those on the scene know better what must be done than do high-minded and marble-clad purists. A true statesman knows when to avert his eyes and walk towards freedom without tripping over the tree roots of self-doubt, and his reward is not the ephemeral cheers of a temporarily fashionable committee in Norway, but immortality chiseled in North Dakota granite.”
AnotherBruce
$200 a column, are you fucking kidding me? I would have to write a column for a shitty $200 and not be able cuss. Jesus, the least these bastards could do is pay a living wage. What does Charles Fucking Krauthammer get paid to publish his insane bile?
Lev
I think you can never go wrong with some ignorant decontextualized historical references. Like so:
Or there’s this…
freelancer
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
LOLWTF?
and is “North Dakota” deliberate?
Martin
It’s not a freebie. He still needs to send in 13 of BOBs best to get that money.
Zifnab
@AnotherBruce:
To be fair, he takes payment in the form of human souls, and you can’t really put a price on that.
arguingwithsignposts
@Zifnab:
Damn, Zinfab, that was what I was going to say. LOL.
Svensker
@Joey Maloney:
Ha ha ha. Thers is good.
arguingwithsignposts
@Zifnab:
Of course, I wonder what that looks like on his taxes?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@freelancer:
Absolutely. The column wouldn’t be complete without a factual error so blatant a 5th grader could spot it (so the WaPo ombudsman can defend their fact checking process). That and the more subtle part about sneering at the value of the Nobel Peace Prize when TR did in fact win one of them.
Ethan Hoddes
I’d take out the Polanski line, it seems to me like brainless columnists see being for Polanski’s arrest as a “conservative” position (see Politico’s eagerness to get Obama in the same headline with “Polanski supporters”)
Martin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
That’s full of win, especially if North Dakota is deliberate. As if the WaPo would even catch it…
Lev
Ah, Beltway elites. The eternal drama of seeing one group of elites bashing another group of elites for being elites. It’s an irony-free zone, D.C. is.
srv
Not enough 1939, and not enough Churchill. You have to have both of them in at least every other paragraph.
Someone should just take all of Krauthammer’s opinion pieces and feed it through one of those generator things.
Tara the antisocial social worker
I’m pretty sure the phrase “post-9/11 world” is required by law.
freelancer
I also like BombIranForChrist’s attempt at sniping Friedman. But you should go read Taibbi’s reviews of Moustache’s last two books if you haven’t already. They are works of art.
http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html
http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html
0whole1
I recommend writing the whole things in koans, like the Sphinx from Mystery Men: “To learn my teachings, I must first teach you how to learn.”
kay
“while the administraion is silent and the fiscally
prudent are silenced.”
Leave that in. It’s very funny, but it will “pass”, I think.
schrodinger's cat
@ironranger:
That has been my unconfirmed suspicion, too.
MissKG
The line between genius and idiocy now officially erased. But be honest now — did Thom Hartmann give you that Hobbesian stuff?
John Cole
If you are really going for the WaPo neocon/wingnut blogger vibe, you need to make sure the following phrases are used:
decisive
gird your loins
steely-eyed
crammed down our throats
Any or all of those will be useful.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Joey@11 is right. The Whiskey Fire column defeats all, everybody else is just finding out who places second.
Or better yet, simply plaigerize something from Taibbi and see if any of the comPost contest judgers notice it. If you win, tell em to contact Taibbi. I’m sure he can use the extra scratch. /snark
Annie
Add, “Obama is more concerned with being a celebrity in Europe than defending American exceptionalism abroad. He is more concerned with appeasing Muslim terrorists than promoting American interests and values worldwide. His promotion of deliberative diplomacy over brute military force shows how much he disdains American power. As a result, he has made our country less safe, more timid, and more reactive instead of pro-active. Our enemies only fear us when we have the will to use the full force of our military to gain the types of concessions we demand. Being a good guy on the world stage only brings us grief in the end. He should get over his need to appease and be liked and show how raw power can secure peace.”
Makewi
His eye on his assured history book entry and his desire to finally give meaningful voice to generations of powerless blacks has made him cautious, or even perhaps too conservative on issues such as gay rights.
SpotWeld
Be sure to throw in a few lines on how American is great, and how great is was, and how you know that it’s still the lifeblood of citizens, but save for the dominance of a few..etc.. etc..
Keep in mind they’re looking for someone who will get eyeballs.. You can rile up and vilify, but you gotta leave them with a few warm fuzzies too.
Bnad
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
This is first class WaPo material.
schrodinger's cat
Why don’t you send it, under Tunch’s name.
schrodinger's cat
@John Cole:
Also,
Appeasement
and
Munich
gbear
@smiley:
Lilly Von Schtupp later paraphrased: “A wed wose. How owdinawy”.
jl
Some quotes, with various themes attached:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves that we are underlings.
Julius Caeser
The present eye praises the present object.
Troilus and Cressida
Theme: We are bedazzled with Obama, and we will soon follow the Nobel Peace Prize committee into complete insanity, and unlike them, our doom
“Well, I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Theme: I don’t care what the Democrats say it is, it looks like spinach (shoshulism) and I say it IS spinach (shoshulism), and I say to hell with it.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done.
Troilus and Cressida
Theme: Yes, they made mistakes, but the wit and wisdom of the Cheney Bush years is being forgotten and squandered
There is a mystery–with whom relation
Durst never meddle–in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to.
Troilus and Cressida
Theme: The Glory and Majesty of the State, Good Manners of Society, and what makes us good and proper little boys like Brooks and Broder are being squandered by the Obamaniacs
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
Without a prompter.
Othello
Theme: The great silent majority is coiled to strike out in rebellion if this nonsense keeps up, especially if the oppressive social engineers in power impose the public option on us.
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Richard II
Theme: The GOP must be given a voice or we are doomed, but they won’t be given a voice due to their own inexplicable passivity, and the Democrats’ meanness; good manners and common sense dictate that the Democrats give them their voice to save us all and restor Balance.
AnotherBruce
Is the word “gird” used with any other words than “your loins”? I mean I’ve never heard anyone say. “Gird your dog”. “Gird your ears.” or “Gird Granny”.
General Winfield Stuck
Resolute
Resolved
Firm Beliefs
castellan
You know, if these folks do any due diligence at all, they might actually put some of these phrases in to Google to see what pops out. They’ll find this page pretty quickly.
Given Google’s ability to index a page in short order it might already be too late to erase all of the hints of this grand conspiracy. However, you might wish to whack this entry and its comments from the database (or at least disable viewing of this particular story — I’m not versed in WordPress, so I don’t know what mechanisms exist for content control, but I know they’re there) prior to submitting your entry.
Nah, what the hell am I thinking? This is the Traditional Media… If they did any research, you wouldn’t be doing this in the first place!
Llelldorin
@arguingwithsignposts:
$6.9 million per soul, since the Bush administration cut him a nice tax break.
Steve V
Well, the title is frigging awesome.
ronin122
@Comrade Jake: I may be flamed for saying this, but comparing BOB to these pundits may, just maybe, be an unfair comparison for BOB.
Zifnab
@castellan:
Only after they’ve made it through all their own works.
Chuck Butcher
@Zifnab:
I suppose that would put it on page 18 or so?
Annie
@AnotherBruce
I vote for the use of “gird.” Your analysis is brilliant. It definately should be used throughout! I am still laughing…
LoveMonkey
Not bad, it’s the same act you have been doing here for years under various handles, right?
smiley
@gbear:
Heh. (Not quite the same though.)
Ben Richards
A bads sports reference is needed. Something like how while this may be the first quarter of Obama’s presidency, a patient deliberate game plan is not a winning strategy when Al Queda and the forces of terrorism around the globe are running a two-minute drill against our interests at home and abroad…
Something like that.
Little Dreamer
Do you wonder if by posting this here on the front page you might be defeating your purpose? It’s too easy to google up a portion of your screed and figure out it was purposely plagiarized.
Shell
Ugh. Honestly, that has to be the kind of thing that the Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come reveals as your fate if you don’t reform.
smiley
@Annie: Click on the little gray arrow in the upper right hand of comments to link back to the comment you’re responding to. Could a tutorial be added to the lexicon and the FAQ?
cincyanon
I once wrote a simple Latin phrase and asked for online interpretations. Most of the responses I got clearly had googled and referred to an earlier discussion I’d had on the web about the same phrase. I think by putting this on the site and the Wash. Post folks googling any part of it (yes, this could be a stretch) to make sure it isn’t already “out there” that you may be ruining your chances. Yet, I also think you could easily create a version that may work because… well, it is the Washington Post’s editorial page.
Church Lady
Doug, you have waaaay too much time on your hands. Don’t you have classes to teach or papers to grade, or something else scholarly to do?
Annie
@smiley
Shiittttttttt! Ok, you caught me. I am technologically illiterate. I am not even sure that a tutorial will help. Does my technological incompetence bother you???? In my defense, I do write well –usually…And, I like my ideas. And, I do laugh a lot on this site.
Leelee for Obama
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: We’re just not worthy of you.
That was amazing-gave TR plausible deniability and confessed to torture and human rights abuses while throwing long dead military members under the bus.
I am in awe!
J
ThatLeftTurnInABQ @25
Brilliant, but for one detail: if Teddy Roosevelt fought the last successful war of counterinsurgency doesn’t that imply that the surge (or rather THE SURGE) wasn’t the single greatest episode in all of human military history?
My suggestion, somehow work in OTT praise of the surge.
Dream On
It still needs that Friedman sage-like gravitas. (google “It’s time for America to get it’s turkey back”.) And it needs a Maureen Dowd snark factor.
Good start, though.
HyperIon
Gotta confess, DougJ: HATED your spoofing back in the day.
So of course I will disrespectfully decline to help you spoof WaPo. It’s just stoopid. Why not contribute do something positive with your time?
Dream On
Make it as bad as this. (America gets its Turkey back…)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/feb/16/terrorism.usa
smiley
@Annie: Just trying to help. Do whatever you want but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you make it easier for people here to follow what you’re commenting on. It’s just one click after all. But, whatever…
geg6
This is the funniest goddamn thread I’ve ever read, anywhere. I can’t possibly beat some of the stuff already here. I love, love, love this blog.
Annie
@smiley:
Ok. I take your point. I don’t want to be inconsiderate…that is far from my intent. I thought I was contributing…For now, I will just laugh to myself…
Dream On
This will get you started. Just plagiarize – evrybody at the New York Times does anyway. And here are some incoherent smarmy ramblings from the Elvis of incoherent smarmy ramblings. You must NEVER BE SINCERE.
http://open.salon.com/blog/norwonk/2009/10/07/tom_friedman_the_uncrowned_prime_minister_of_mixed_metaphor
and this: (note the final paragraph)
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/2003/en/0302_friedman.html
yes, YOU can be like the Mustache of Understanding.
geg6
smiley@78: Just so you know, when I’m on my BlackBerry, I can’t use the reply thingy. It isn’t there. And it sometimes is really hard to scroll through a hundred posts to find the number of the post. So I’m sometimes guilty of the same confusion as Annie. It’s not necessarily a choice.
DougJ
Thanks for the suggestions. A lot of good ones.
Jeff Berardi
That’s gold, Jerry! Gold!
Seriously, whatever you change in this essay, this has to remain a centerpiece.
Leelee for Obama
@DougJ: Doug, I was so carried away by LTaA, that I didn’t say the title is just awesome! For some reason, I hear Robert Bork reading this out loud with just the correct amount of sneering derision. I really am not in the same league as some of the posters on this thread-but I have enjoyed everything immensely, so that’s something. The Thers piece had me wiping tears off my cheeks, but as funny as it was , the comments were hilarious cubed. However, he’s not really trying to win-your piece actually could-Hiatt is secretly in love with Joementum, also.
Annie
@geg6:
Thanks. I was sitting here feeling bad that I was not being a good community person. There is enough shit going on with current events, work, and surviving, to feel somehow that I was being scolded on a website that I have come to love and look forward to several times a day. In the interim, I just chased one of my cats, who had a little mouse in her mouth, throughout the house, trying to get her to drop it, so I could toss it. Yuk! She finally tossed it, all the while growling like a dog, so I could pick it up and dispose of it. Now, I am fighting the urge to wash her mouth out with something, because I know later she will want to curl up with me and sleep.
smiley
@geg6: Thanks. I’m not familiar with mobile devises, other that the basic cell phone, so I didn’t know that. I don’t care that much, I just made a suggestion to Annie, but now I know. Thanks again… I’ll shut up bout it now…
smiley
Oh Good Gawd:
Jeebus. Your skin is <waaay too thin. As I said @smiley:, I was just making a suggestion. Let’s drop it.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Wow, I’ve just read Thers’ entry (courtesy of JM @ 11) and you’ve got some heavy competition.
Um … How about:
No one can reasonably deny that Obama’s one indisputable accomplishment – becoming the first African-American President of the United States – is a great acheivement indeed. Although it behooves us to remember that he had plenty of assistance on his travels along the road to history. However, the fact that the son of a Kenyan man and a free-spirited Caucasian woman should only increase our pride in this great nation. But reasonable minds can wonder if it comes with price we can’t yet see. Could Obama’s multicultural heritage and the globe-trotting he did as a young man prevent him from truly understand American values?
(Excuse me, I must go puke.)
Annie
@smiley:
But, Smiley, you are awesome. I took your advice and it worked! Now, what do I do about my cat’s “mouse” breath?
Paris
Russia has us on a leash like a hypo allergenic Portuguese water dog, sneering ‘heel’ at our proclamations about freedom and free markets.
DougJ
Russia has us on a leash like a hypo allergenic Portuguese water dog, sneering ‘heel’ at our proclamations about freedom and free markets.
Hmmm…what is the Russian word for “heel”. I think a few foreign words would spice it up.
ronathan richardson
I think it’s possible to, in one sentence, link the nobel peace prize, investigating war crimes, appeasement of terrorists, and forced equality. Something along the lines of, “But mutiny may be on our laureate’s silver platter if he pursues our finest interrogators merely to assure Bin Laden that the playing field is level.”
smiley
I’m going to go way off topic here and finally shut this thread down for good: I like this web site a lot. .
It’s pretty amazing to me how much Cartier-Bresson influenced modern photojournalism. The “decisive moment” approach to photography is alive and well. Famous examples from Cartier-Bresson:
1) Man jumping puddle.
2) Biker.
3)http://cosmicaudrey.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/art_henri20cartier-bresson20-20aquila20degl.jpg
Sly
Not enough false equivalences between “legitimate” political actors, i.e. the Democratic and Republican parties (monolithic appellations like “liberals” and “conservatives” will also suffice). Example: Equate the Democrat’s efforts to filibuster a handful of Neanderthal judges while in the minority to the Republican’s insistence on shutting down the legislative process at all levels. Making such comparisons between Beck and Olbermann are fine and dandy, but true Villagers never sully their waistcoats by referencing people by name.
Sprinkles of “the American people are non-ideological” here and there would be a nice touch, as well. Villagers love broad generalizations of a cultural ethos made up of hundreds of millions of people, no matter how asinine it may sound. Remember, American politics is never local. Meaningless national identities, in carefully constructed moderation, are the order of the day.
Finally, make reference to Scoop Jackson and Jacob Javits. This will bring your independent-minded bona fides to the absolute forefront.
smiley
@smiley: I think I’ve learned something here. Post three or four links and you go into moderation. Makes sense, I guess.
General Winfield Stuck
@smiley:
Three is the limit. 4 sends it into mod. This blog reminds me of an old junker car I had with many secrets to make it go.
DougJ
“But mutiny may be on our laureate’s silver platter if he pursues our finest interrogators merely to assure Bin Laden that the playing field is level.”
Good stuff.
Wile E. Quixote
@castellan
Research, fact-checking, due-diligence.? C’mon, this is the WaPo we’re talking about, they don’t do any research, they let George Will print whatever nonsense he wants about global warming without anything that could even be vaguely construed as “fact-checking” and if they ever exercised any due diligence they’d have to lock the entire editorial staff in the building some night and then burn it to the ground.
AhabTRuler
@smiley: Always remember: ‘3’ is the Magik #
Tara the antisocial social worker
Don’t forget the obligatory reference to hard-working small-town Americans (Midwest or South only) with “values.”
More terms to work in:
agenda
indoctrinate
and the great-great-grandsomething of meaningless buzzwords, a complaint about “political correctness”
wobbly
This is the full text of the poem in question by William Butler Yeats:
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
He wrote this in 1919, for heaven’s sake, not in 1939. What the hell he was thinking, I have no idea, but it is a hell of a poem. Yeats won the Nobel prize for literature in 1923, and according to Brendan Behan, answered the reporter who telephoned him with the good news….
“For God’s sake, man, get a hold of yourself! How much is it?”
They just don’t make Nobel prize winners like they used to…
And none of you children have actually read Yeats?
bayville
Don’t forget Michael Moore is fat.
Chuck Butcher
I thought about doing this straight, ya know, “shit I could do that. Then I remembered that I’d have to do it 12 times and for squat that didn’t really trump doing it for free like now on my own damn schedule. Have fun DougJ.
Chuck Butcher
I thought about doing this straight, ya know, “shit I could do that. Then I remembered that I’d have to do it 12 times and for squat that didn’t really trump doing it for free like now on my own damn schedule. Have fun DougJ.
Augustine
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com
that is all.
Dave J
Long-time reader, first-time poster here. I decided to give this a try. I gave myself a few guidelines: (1) use appeasement as the main theme, (2) use the Nobel Peace Prize as another theme (and as an excuse to sneer at Europeans), (3) include at least one statement blaming Bill Clinton for 9/11, (4) include at least one statement that approves of birthers, while leaving myself room to deny that I actually agree with them, (5) demonstrate no intellectual honesty or respect for facts whatsoever.
The historical reference in the title might be a little too obscure for some right-wingers (like that guy on Hardball who couldn’t identify what Chamberlain did), so I’ll suggest as an alternative: Nobel Appeasement Prize.
—
A Nobel Prize for “Peace in Our Time”
When Neville Chamberlain returned home from his meeting with Hitler in Munich in 1938, announcing that he had achieved “peace in our time” at Czechoslovakia’s expense, the Norwegians did not reward him with a Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps this was simply a matter of timing, as Chamberlain’s vaunted “peace” ended almost as soon as it began. Such a quick lesson was not to occur in 2009, since Obama was awarded the prize before the full consequences of his foreign policy could become apparent. But a few years down the road, will people look at Obama’s Prize in the same way that they would have perceived a Nobel Prize for Chamberlain?
Think about all that has happened on the foreign policy front since Obama took office. In Afghanistan, the Taliban were in hiding, and a fragile democratic government was struggling to repair a ravaged nation. In just a few short months, the Taliban have made a comeback, causing more havoc than they did at any point in Bush’s presidency, and any pretense of Afghan “democracy” has been shattered by a flawed election. It’s hard to imagine that these changes are unrelated to Obama’s abandonment of military strength as a cornerstone of America’s foreign policy. European leftists might have truly believed that Obama’s flowery rhetoric could charm a group of thugs like the Taliban into forswearing violence, but we are seeing that the reality is quite different.
Iran has used Obama’s presidency as an opportunity to make a dash for the finish line of its nuclear program. Does anyone think that this timing is a coincidence? Iran is used to seeing countries like Norway do little more than wag their fingers in response to the mullahs’ outrages. But they haven’t seen America behave so passively during the past eight years. They think that they can get away with anything now. And they’re probably right. After all, they’re dealing with a President who behaves as if an Israeli family in the West Bank that wants to build a new home is a greater threat to peace in the Middle East than a nuclear-armed group of mullahs committed to Israel’s destruction at any cost. Could anyone who truly understands foreign policy in the real world–as opposed to the ivory tower–expect anything different?
Obama’s foreign policy is not aimed at staring down the bullies in Kabul and Tehran and Pyongyang, but at sucking up to the starry-eyed dreamers in Oslo and Paris and Copenhagen. But even the dreamers’ admiration for Obama only goes so far. They’re happy to speak well of Obama and hand him a medal. But when there is something substantial at stake, like the decision about which city should host the Olympics, we see that even their admiration for him has limits.
Even in domestic policy, Obama’s desire to emulate the Scandinavians seems to trump all else. Instead of fixing the problems with America’s health care system, he is trying to create a system of rationed care that would make the Norwegians proud. Inevitably, such a system will be funded by oppressive taxation, something that might be accepted among European elites but has raised a few eyebrows on this side of the Atlantic. The media, along with Obama’s remaining supporters, dismiss the Tea Party protests that spontaneously erupted this summer as a bunch of cranks. They should look closer. Millions of Americans are genuinely concerned about where their country is headed. Even the protesters who question Obama’s citizenship should not be dismissed. After all, when their President spends so much time trying to be a citizen of the world, can you blame people for wondering if he is really a citizen of America?
Obama should bask in the glow of his Nobel Prize while he can. Just as Neville Chamberlain learned when Hitler invaded Poland, and Bill Clinton should have learned when Osama Bin Laden attached America on 9/11, you can only appease your enemies for so long before they decide you’re not a threat, and they come after you. Obama won the prize, but Americans will pay the price.
Radio One
one thing I’d suggest would be an appeal to populist revolt by focusing on “morning zoo” radio populist antics. As long as you can effectively debate strawmen liberal arguments, and be able to make ridiculous arguments for insane zoo opinions, you’ll be the WashPo’s next great pundit.
bjacques
@94 Sly: Damn, you beat me to it on the false equivalencies.
But the editorial needs more concern trolling. Characterizing the Democrats’ inability to roll back Republican fuckery as first steps toward prudent bipartisanism, with (it is hoped) more to follow.
Or have some real fun and just plagiarize an old column by Lally Weymouth, the mother of the WaPo’s current publisher. Bomb Iran, bomb North Korea, that sort of thing. Jeane Kirkpatrick had nothing on her.
bago
To be a proper columnist you must use rhetorical devices such as “some say…” and detail filled anecdotes of your interaction with the common man, peppered with folksy details, such as an applebee’s salad bar. This is then followed by “this goes to show the necessity of”, or “this informs the balancing act that a good bipartisan solution must embrace”. A layer of indirection is required so that nobody can pin some of the more ridiculous items directly upon you, merely upon your assertion of the anecdote asserting them.
georgia pig
You need a telltale hint of a bobo masquerading as a Liebercrat, accidently drop an Oakeshott here or there.
bjacques
For 2600 bucks, why not just write a script with a pool of stock phrases, and the ability to tweak it for “moar Bob” or “dial down the Friedman.” Easy money.
asiangrrlMN
@DougJ: Man, this is brilliant. I would send it in under my name if you’d like. I do have an elitist edu-macational degree, but it’s in Writing & Consciousness, which can be dismissed with a roll of the eyeballs.
DougJ
would send it in under my name if you’d like. I do have an elitist edu-macational degree, but it’s in Writing & Consciousness, which can be dismissed with a roll of the eyeballs.
I think you’d be perfect — a gay, Asian, midwestern Liebercrat. They’d have to put you in the final ten, at least.
DougJ
@Dave
That is really good. Are you going to submit it? I think that multiple whacked out appeasement submissions would increase the odds of one winning greatly.
Dave J
I’m not going to submit it under my own name. I don’t want to be associated with so much crazy, even if I’m just submitting it as a prank. If someone else wants to submit it, or at least borrow pieces of it, I’d be okay with that.