Stupid Sabbath

Am I the only one disappointed that Bill Moyers turned out not to be the author of the Not One Damn Dime spam? Not that I was really expecting it. (We old-timers can still remember the Vonnegut-sunscreen hoax back in Old '97.) But what would have been a better signoff for Moyers, who recently stepped down from his spot at PBS' Now With Bill Moyers?

As it happens, I had never seen an episode of Now until just a few weeks ago. My only impression of Bill Moyers was that he's the guy who trots out his tapes of Ur-Windbag Joseph Campbell to lull the nation to sleep every Pledge Week, so it was a surprise to find what an engagé political figure he really was. During a report on Tom Delay, Moyers intoned, "The Texas Republican is so frequently under a cloud of scandal that he blinks when the sun comes out." In a later segment on Condoleezza Rice's selection as the next Secretary of State, Moyers opened with something along the lines of "It's about accountability, and an unprecedented record of deceit, failure, and incompetence," then led up to a rhetorical question (I'm paraphrasing): "So why, since Condoleezza Rice is a million times more evil than Hitler, is she not behind bars?" It was really an incredible performance by a guy I'd always figured to be a milksop white-line liberal of the Johnsonoid school. Brent Bozell makes some good points (and that's the last time I'll ever say that) about Wild Bill here.

Anyway, Not One Damn Dime Day is coming tomorrow. If TV Turnoff Week is your idea of a raging success, if you can figure out the logic of punishing your local Korean grocer for John Kerry's loss, if you've forgotten the Great Gas-Out of 1999, and if you're sure that those retail fatcats must somehow be behind Bush's re-election, save your money tomorrow. Alas, I won't be participating because I'm mad at the protest organizers: Although I filled out the online form as instructed, they haven't posted my comments on their petition page.