Keeping a wary eye on, in the words of a much smarter man than I, "interested men, who are not to be trusted, weak men who cannot see, [and] prejudiced men who will not see..."
Old post that I did not manage to get to the past month. But that glorious screenshot is from Jon Stewart's self-shot video of his reaction to Johan Santana's no-hitter for the Mets last Friday that was aired on The Daily Show on Monday. As a fellow Mets sufferer fan, I know how he feels.
The Mets, very surprisingly after the loss of Jose Reyes, have been winning with an unheralded squad (outside of David Wright) and are currently in second place in the NL East, right behind the almost as surprising Nationals. The poster boy for this squad would have to be knuckleballer R.A. Dickey who just recently went on a historic run on 1-hit shut outs.
Long story short, much like Stew Beef, I love this Mets team and their equally unheralded manager, Terry Collins. I think it may be time for people to start meeting these Metropolitans and do some heralding.
Apparently, Fox News head honcho Roger Ailes intimated that Jon Stewart had "basically" admitted to being a socialist while speaking at Ohio University. In a bar. This is amazing. I would've paid very good money to be there as a witness for this alleged breaking of barley. I'm picturing a lumbering Roger Ailes, tipse on the blood of liberal children and fear-mongering, I dunno, gin sidling up to some Manhattan bar:
Roger Ailes: Heyyyy. Hey Stewart. STEWART... You're a goddamned communist aren't you? Or at least a socialist like President Hussein. Don't chu deny it.
Confused Jewish Professional That Vaguely Resembles Jon Stewart: Pardon em? Who is Stewart? What are you talking about.
RA: Don't DENNYY ITTT. R Murds told me is was legit.
CJPTVRJS: Umm, sure. I'm a socialist just like whoever the Hussein guy is.
RA: I KNEW IT! R MURDS IS ALWAYS RIGHT. Must be that tappin' intel.
Fin.
Clearly not my best old drunk white guy impersonating work, but you get the idea. I cannot wait to see what the Daily Show does with this info. Jon Stewart, though a socialist, is a lot funnier than I.
Image: An awesome, super jowly, Ailes from DangerousMinds.net
Dick Lugar, a six-term Republican Senator from Indiana, just recently lost a primary battle to new Tea Party (side note: I thought that whole thing had run it's course...) darling Richard Mourdock. Many supporters of this move, as Teabaggers are wont to do, state that Lugar has simply been part of the Washington establishment too long, is in the District more than he is in Indiana, and has lost touch with his constituents. Certainly, there is more than a small kernel of truth to this. However, the responses of many more, not least of which was Mr. Mourdock, lent credence to the idea that Lugar actually lost because he was not properly awash in the glorious flames of ideological purity and had the audacity to reach his hand across the aisle to attempt to deal with the other party. According to Mr. Mourdock, the opposite day definition of bi-partisanship, and the only way that he would be involved, was when Dems had the good sense to come to whatever crazy ass position he decided to grab a hold of. Additionally, as Jonathan Chait points out in the above linked article, one of Lugar's sins was voting for the very qualified Justices Sotomayor and Kagan after President Obama nominated them. As Chait points out that, outside of extreme circumstances, the practice of voting for the other party's Supreme Court nomination, much like votes to raise the debt ceiling, was quite commonplace until very recently.
This primary, however, is just a symptom of a much larger and a much scarier ailment that is oft discussed, but without any serious worry about the future repercussions... the increasing partisanship acrimony between the parties. Lugar's end is one of many recent examples of relatively more moderate (cannot stress relatively more) Republican Senators getting labeled Republicans In Name Only, or RINOs, and then getting attacked by the fringier parts of the GOP. In fairness, there are also the pols formerly known as Blue Dog Dems Democrats In Name Only, or DINOs (RINOs and DINOs... totes cute, amiriight?), who are also getting weeded out, but to a much lesser degree. This level of polarization will increasingly become a problem if it continues. During the debt ceiling debates, the US' credit rating was threatened because people around the world are starting to think our political process is too dysfunctional to get anything done. And they are not far off. This whole development, which seems unique to the aughts in my mind, makes me more and more worried about the future each time it rears its ugly head. One can almost picture a post-apocalyptic political future where there are literally two America's with the Red team having a firm grip on the amber waves of grain, the Blue team holding it down from sea to shining "whatever demarcates the end of each coast," and not a majestic purple mountain to be seen because, as everyone knows, red and blue don't mix.
Such a future makes me sick to my stomach so I can only hope that those representing us wise the hell up and realize that the only litmus test that truly matters is if they are doing what is best for their country. Though many who hold similar political beliefs as me gripe about President Obama being too moderate or even GASP a bit conservative for a Democrat, I hope he continues to let his Purple freak flag fly. Pretty soon he might be the only one left.
A new segment where we just let Jon Stewart gets his Stew Beef on. Here he blasts Fox News for blatantly following the Republican National Convention's talking points and accidentally revealing that they are doing so.
