Parrot Cage

Coulter the Deadhead

Does Ann Coulter's love for the Grateful Dead betray her as a mercenary con?  Well, if you haven't figured out that she's a walking Springer show, and a very rich one at that, then you might be disturbed by this interview in which she speaks lovingly about Deadhead culture.  And we're supposed to believe that Ms. She-wolf of the SS never toked up?  Naw, it's all about the music, ain't it?

The Obligatory Coulter Response

Yeah, we're a little late to the party on this one, but in the latest Ann Coulter promotional whirlwind we noticed that nobody seems to understand what she's really telling us.

Coulter's latest book attacks the 9-11 widows whose tireless efforts produced the 9-11 Commission.  Then, in her publicity tour she further elaborated her disdain for the widows on the Today Show.  And on and on, from one talk show to the next.

Those programming directors of newsish networks see Ann Coulter as a godsend: Oh, isn't she outrageous!  The programming day practically writes itself in the wake of a Coulter rampage.

So what is Ann Coulter really telling us?  That she hates 9-11 widows?  Big deal.  Her persona hates everyone, that's the character she plays.

No, Ann is telling us that, as a pundit, the greatest threat to her profession is credibility.  And for once, she's actually right.

In addition to 9-11 widows, there's a whole bevy of threats to Coulter's profession:

...there's Cindy Sheehan. There's Joe Wilson. Can't respond, can't point out that his wife works at the CIA. There's Max Cleland, there's Murtha. I mean it goes back to Caroline McCarthy, the congressman from Long Island whose husband was shot on the Long Island railroad. It's always -- and Christopher Reeve, arguing for stem-cell -- embryonic stem-cell research -- not adult stem-cell research.

She bemoans the fact that it is difficult to win an argument against someone who actually has a stake in that issue.  In fact, her profession is jeopardized by the very stark contrast between someone with actual experience and a personal investment on very serious issues to someone with no experience or expertise in anything.  Ann is not just mindlessly barking insults, she's desperately defending her entire class. 

Coulter, like most pundits, has no serious professional experience in anything other than as a member of the commentarian elite.  And even in that profession she's been fired multiple times for not living up to even the minimum standards of opinion peddling.  We remember when lazy talk shows would introduce her as a "Constitutional Scholar."  Apparently that was based on her membership in the white-ringer legal organization The Federalist Society.  The strange and dishonest methodology of research for her books suggest that she couldn't possibly be a scholar of anything.

Coulter is, as Andrew Sullivan calls her, "a drag queen impersonating a fascist."  But underneath all that overworked venom is a serious thought: credibility challenges the non-credible.  Should the public ever choose to become informed, the pundit class and parrotocracy could crumble into nothingness.

The question arises, is Ann Coulter more dangerous on TV or working the streets?  She already gets paid to fuck people in the ass, perhaps it's time she fucked over some willing recipients.  Looks like we have a cash-paying john anxiously lubing up over at Time.  May his rectum squeal like the sound of truth dying.
 

The Fox News Exit Strategy in the War on Holidays

Media Matters uncovers Bill O'Reilly contradicting himself, again.  The unstable Fox staple warned of a War on Easter, and then became incensed that anyone would accuse him of fabricating a War on Easter.  Many people think Bill O'Reilly is just a moron, but we actually think this could be the Fox News exit strategy in the War on Holidays (those with pseudo-Christian pretexts, as opposed to those holidays which Christians really do want to destroy).

Come Christmas time O'Reilly and Fox cohorts will be tempted to beat the War on Christmas drum, except they've already used up all their material: the stuff they either seriously exaggerated, misrepresented, or completely manufactured. 

We remember O'Reilly telling Dave Letterman about a school in Wisconsin who allegedly changed the lyrics to Silent Night to excise Jesus from the traditional Christmas song.  This incident was central to the Fox News anti-Christmas theme and has been repeated by numerous white ringers, mooniebots, and John Gibson--the stupidest man on television.  This Wisconsin fairy tale has since been exposed as a complete ruse: the song in question was part of a copyrighted Christmas play which freely borrows from traditional Christmas carols and was written by a devout Presbyterian.

With their chickenshit grievances and boogieman stories, how long can they really sustain the War on Holidays illusion with a straight face?  How long can they cling to the "Happy Holidays is an insult" battle cry?

Well, the Fox News and white-ringer media chorus may have profited from exploiting Christianist paranoia, but they aren't true theocrats, they're a business.  And it looks like this faux crusade may be reaching the point to where it isn't even credible to Republicans.

No, my friends, it looks like the War on Christmas is winding down.  O'Reilly and his ilk will declare victory: claiming that their militant efforts have intimidated Christmas-haters into submission.  After declaring a fictional victory in a fictional war, Fox and friends will head on home to more pressing issues... like the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.

Port Security and Job Security

Is Cokie Roberts the laziest parrot in the parrotocracy, or simply the stupidest?  Cokie always makes it hard to tell the difference.  But that's always the game of the parrot: am I a moron, or do I just play one on tv.

Cokie's always eager to spin for the Republicans, be it for bread or absence of good sense, and this time she's dismissing Democratic opposition to the Bush administration's gawd awful attempts to place our most vulnerable ports into the hands of their oily friends in the United Arab Emirates. 

Now, this shouldn't be Republicans v. Democrats, this issue should be common sense v. stupidity, but Cokie is quick to place nefarious motives behind the Democratic outcry.

We've never understood how someone with such shallow insight and negligible raw intelligence could remain gainfully employed for so long, but Cokie is truly a testament to the American Dream.  Every child in America can reap the Cokie fortunes if both your parents are Congressional Representatives and you then marry an establishment pundit.  Under those conditions no amount of nonsense which whistles between your teeth can keep you from the sweet corporate cash which is your birthright.

Master Parrot Russert

Like most MSM reporters and pundits, Tim Russert of Meet the Press bends to hysterical contortions to prove his neutrality.  Of course, in medialand neutrality and fairness generally means that you accept the ludicrous notion that there are two parties to every dispute and that they are both equally culpable.  Call it Fairness for Dummies, or splitting the difference.

Needless to say, Russert's annoying and clueless approach to neutrality is not his most obnoxious quality; no, it's his half-bright parrotry.  Perhaps this also qualifies as the least effective weapon in his fairness arsenal.  Russert will absorb and repeat other people's talking points which he brazenly passes off as his own thoughts.  Not surprisingly, most of those talking points are born in mooniebot central.

So now, as Arianna Huffington goes after him for various ethical lapses, both grave and light, NBC's publicity department has gone on a counter-offensive, and apparently not a very bright one.

All this hubbub has at least created a new blog, dedicated to Supreme Parrot Russert.  Of all the mindless mediamen in the governing Parrotocracy, nobody deserves it more.  Check it:  Open Letter to Tim Russert.

Under our breath: Howard Fineman's Irrelevance is Absolute

Newsweek's Howard Fineman may be the most consistently bland and assertively superficial of all parrots in the commentarian elite.  He may not be dumb, but he plays it well on tv and in print.

Case in point, from Demoralized Dems:

Do we really want to relive the Clinton Years? Under their breath, even many Clinton acolytes tend to say “NO.”

Does Howard really think that any honest American would reject the Clinton peace and prosperity for our current state of unending war, escalating poverty, fiscal insolvency, executive incompetence, diminution of civil liberties, AND THE DROWNING OF NEW ORLEANS?

The salient theme isn't that Democrats are currently demoralized: America is demoralized, you twit!  We're no fans of Clinton, but, given the choice, who wouldn't shun our current catastrophe-in-chief for the nastiest deep-throating snowballing Clinton scandal?

Howard, the answer to your rhetorical question is YES!  The worst day of Clinton was better than the best day of Bush.