Tina Brown at the Cleaners

Tina Brown, ex-big thing in mag publishing now reduced to a much-mocked, little-read Wash Post column and the cable equivalent of porn (once-weekly, ne'er-watched CNBC show, Topic A, which resembles nothing so much as a Second City TV skit) may want to get a new dry cleaners. Or hope to hell that the "undecided airheads" she frets will settle this election really don't read the newspapers.

In her latest col, Brown pronounces that the election "is probably not going to turn on something important." Nope, says La Brown, it will rest on "some dopey, misappropriated sound bite that cuts through to the undecided airheads." Brown then discusses the Mary Cheney screwup of the "elegant, stentorian" John Kerry and the latest about Bill O'Reilly's phone sex preferences (on full-frontal display at the invaluable The Smoking Gun), noting that "part of the frisson of docu-porn is knowing that we are all one click away from an e-mail or cell-phone leak from our own personal theaters of embarrassment."

Brown then closes out her column by gratuitously insulting the self-evidently moronic bimbette she encounters regularly at her dry cleaner's:

At my local dry cleaner after the last debate, I encountered a young female undecided whose political mood swings I have been unscientifically tracking. "Made up your mind yet?" I asked brightly between gritted teeth. "Well, Kerry had the best facts," she replied distractedly, "but I'm sort of drifting toward Bush.'' Huh? "Well, Kerry telling the world Dick Cheney's daughter was a lesbian was, like, really unfair." No time now to point out that it was Dick Cheney, not John Kerry, who reminded the world of this fact on the campaign trail. Put your money on it: Airheads are going to be the definitive swing voters on Nov. 2.

Whole thing here.

Sign up for The Smoking Gun's mailing list here. And count the days until they run an expose of Tina Brown's embarrasingly stained laundry (perhaps from a "cell-phone leak")…

Comments

[Mo]

Speaking of airheads. Check out today's Boonbocks. The people here, voters and non-voters alike, will find it amusing.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/uclickcomics/20041021/cx_bo_uc/bo20041021

[Franklin Harris]

So, this airhead you speak of is Aaron McGruder?

[Shelby]

Well, if I had to choose between letting Tina Brown select the next president, or the airheads of the nation, I know who I trust more.

[rjk]

I have to say, I agree with her. I don't read her column so I can't comment more broadly, but people are not paying attention to real issues this year whatsoever. Ron Suskind just had a pretty well-read piece in the New York Times that talked about how much of Bush's support is "faith-based." Not meaning, he believes in God and so do they. But rather, they simply have blind faith IN HIM, which is precisely what our founding fathers warned against. Thomas Jefferson said, "Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism." James Madison said, "All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree," and, "A people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." Not too ambiguous there. Oddly enough, many of the people who have blind faith in the president are ardent supporters of gun rights. The whole point in being allowed to own a gun was to provide a counterbalance to the government. America is not a place where we simply trust the leadership to do whatever. It's a place where the PEOPLE run things, and hold the government accountable. Alexander Hamilton: "Here sir, the people govern." But that's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is BAD FOR AMERICA. It's this faith-based phenomenon that the Bush administration is adept at and outlets like Fox News and the New York Post are only too happy to encourage.

This is why 62% of Republicans in a recent poll said that Saddam was connected to 9/11. And this is precisely why Bush will win, if he wins. It's not because people have carefully weighed the facts and determined Bush is more capable to lead the country. If you really take a long, hard look at Bush you'll realize he's basically an average guy of average intelligence, with better than average charm, who rose to fame because of his father's formidable political and business connections.

Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. He was not collaborating with al-Qaeda. He DID let the UN weapons inspectors in. The inspectors determined Iraq had no nuclear program. Bush did NOT exhaust all his diplomatic options. The Bush administration did NOT properly plan for the period of occupation. They did NOT provide enough troops or equipment. The State Department said that terrorism around the world has spiked since the Iraq war, and that al-Qaeda is now present in more countries than before. The US has NOT captured the bad guy, which is Osama bin Laden (remember him?). It has NOT captured the other leader of al-Qaeda, whose name is Ayman al-Zawahiri, nor the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, who sheltered them. Because of the Iraq war, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has joined up with bin Laden and al-Qaeda to target Americans. Before he was not overly concerned about America. Before the war, he was based in the Kurdish region of Iraq, which was outside Saddam's control but friendly to the US. The US had a chance to bomb his camp but didn't, in one case because they didn't want to jeopardize a key reason for invading Iraq. The group with which Zarqawi was affiliated was aiming for the Kurds. Zarqawi had a grudge against Jordan. But the group also said of Saddam, "He is our enemy." Al-Qaeda called Saddam's government an "apostate regime" and "infidels," which is exactly what they called America.

Now, does that sound more or less like what you're getting from the Bush administration?

If not, certainly you've had the wherewithal to dig these things up for yourself, right? Because the strength of America lies in the empowerment of the people. As Benjamin Franklin said, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."

[dhex]

sadly, the NOTBUSH uber alles crowd doesn't strike me as any less faith-based.

this year's election - 50% of eligible voters looking at the other 50% squabble and saying "bah, fuckit."

[rjk]

Favorite Bush quotes. Several months after 9/11:

"I don't know where [bin Laden] is. I have no idea and I really don't care."

"No, you know, I just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."

"I'm not that concerned about him."

Bush to Rumsfeld in the middle of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal:

"Thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror. You are doing a superb job. You are a strong secretary of defense and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude."

Rumsfeld:

"I haven't been focused on the war of ideas, to be honest with you."

They like this, "to be honest with you" thing. Why do they feel the need to specifically point out when they're being honest with us, I wonder?

Colin Powell, 2001:

"[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

p.s. In case you've forgotten, just like the Bush administration has, bin Laden's the guy who killed 3000 Americans. To be honest with you. Just thought I'd remind you.

[gaius marius]

Airheads are going to be the definitive swing voters on Nov. 2.

sadly, she's right. no love for tina brown, but that blind squirrel found her nut.

[rjk]

Nope, that's not correct. The pro-Bush side simply assumes it's the same on both sides. But that's the same kind of relativist junk that conservatives are supposed to reject. There IS a truth out there. Some people would rather be loyal to Bush than accept it.

As for me, my loyalty is to no one man. It's to America -- always will be.

[gaius marius]

what's not correct?

[Guy in the back row]

Gosh, rjk, I never thought or read any of that in the past 3 years of lurking on this board. Boy, it sure answered a lot of questions that I've had.

Thanks for filling me in!

[rst]

There IS a truth out there.

No, there isn't. There is an endless chain of opinions and perceptions, and you like everyone else will eventually settle for a seat on one or more link. Human perception is inherently, immediately, and invariably flawed by bias. The truth is an objective perfection you will never reach in your lifetime.

And Tina Brown may be right, if only because these two fucktards running for president are chasing away the intelligent swing voters.

[Dan]

p.s. In case you've forgotten, just like the Bush administration has, bin Laden's the guy who killed 3000 Americans. To be honest with you.

You know, the drooling "Bush=Hitler" crowd already agrees with you, and the rest of the people are smart enough not to equate "a tiny fraction of the people you ordered into combat got killed" with "you deliberately murdered as many people as you could". So who, exactly, were you appealing to with that inane remark?

[Lowdog]

There are no more uninformed voters for this election than in any other that I can remember. Why is everyone so concerned this time around? As a libertarian, both of the 'major' candidates have no appeal whatsoever. And from where I sit, people from both the Bush camp and the Kerry camp are blindly lead by faith.

[metalgrid]

An acquaintence of mine once remarked: Remember that half the American population is below average, and average is what you see on Jerry Springer.

The implications of that revelation in deciding our next president are dire indeed.

[The Spirit of the Electoral Co]

the rest of the people are smart enough not to equate "a tiny fraction of the people you ordered into combat got killed" with "you deliberately murdered as many people as you could".

Hey Dan,

Is there really a difference? I don't see it. Dead is dead. Does one's imagined motivations of the people who ordered the deaths really make a difference? Why? To whom?

Can you explain the difference to me? I just don't understand what you're getting at.

[JDM]

"Is there really a difference? I don't see it."

I have to believe that if you really try, you can come up with something. Give it a shot, won't you?

[Dan]

Is there really a difference? I don't see it.

Why is that my problem?

[The Spirit of the Electoral Co]

Dan,

You stated there was an obvious difference, but you can't explain what that difference is. This indicates that you don't know what the actual difference is, if there is one. Simply stating that there is a difference, without being able to explain what that is, indictates that you do not think about how you know things: you just accept them on faith, because it comforts you, or because you are too lazy to think. So, your reasoning process is flawed. You do not use logic, and that will surely cause you many difficulties in life. That's why it's your problem. Try to think before you state something as a fact, when it is really just your opinion. If you learn how to reason, people may start to respect you. You can learn to use your intelligence properly if you will only try.

[rst]

Equating all death everywhere is illogical. The effect is equal, therefore you assume that the process is equal as well. That is not logic, that is myopia. You're forcing the facts (where discernible) to fit your model.

Soldiers assume the risk of death as a necessary component to their jobs. That is why they carry guns...their jobs are to kill at the behest of their superiors, and to die in our stead. There is a difference between accidentally killing noncombatants and trying to kill as many noncombatants as possible. The difference is in what you sacrifice for what you hope to gain. An army wants to beat another army into submission, so that it no longer fights and its government is forced to acquiesce. It will sacrifice its own, while trying to keep collateral damage to a minimum, to accomplish this. al Qaeda wants to skip that page and jump right to "fostering social change" by sacrificing regular people. It will sacrifice its own so that regular people will force their government to surrender (Phillipines), but there is no such thing as collateral damage unless there's a mosque nearby. We bomb some kids and we apologize. They bomb some kids and shout Allahu Akhbar. To a Wahhabist, human beings are cattle.

To be honest with you, bin Laden didn't kill 3,000 Americans. bin Laden hid in a cave while 19 men on airplanes killed 3,000 people. Those men were ordered and facilitated by various bin Laden underlings to commit that crime, and they operated independently of bin Laden himself. Killing bin Laden will not make us safer; he does not participate in operations. What will make us safer is if bin Laden lives to see failure. They must be made to see that we can kill their god as efficiently as we have killed our own.

The next terrorist attack on the United States is probably already in its execution phase, and bin Laden likely has no more power to stop it than he has to advance it.