Monday Lite: Team America--World Police
North Korea's nuclear test is a "grave threat to the United States", one that requires immediate action... by someone else because we're kind of busy with this Iraq thing.

At the same time: in South Dakota, where a ban on abortion is up for a vote, "[e]ach side has recruited South Dakota rape victims to aid their campaigns."

Are we 100% sure that our society is worth saving? Because sometimes, you know, I have questions about that.

...

Unrelated to the above, people keep telling me I have to check out Keith Olbermann's series of "Special Comment(s)" at the end of his Countdown program from time to time. They're all over the 'Net and grist for the crazy, spittle-flecked political blogger mill on both sides, which is fine. Good clean fun.

And please note I've been a big fan of Keith Olbermann's for a good long time, since I was a kid and he was the local sports guy on Channel 5 out here in the LA area and on the CBS affiliate before moving on to ESPN and beyond. I've always found him to be a very smart guy with a well-developed sense of humor, both rare things among broadcasters.

But really, of all the rhetorical methods one might employ to emphasize the point they're trying to make, the least appealing to me is sanctimony. It might start from a place of truth and honesty and good intentions, but it always comes out braying and self-serving and perspective-free. The first "Special Comment" I thought was good, inspired by genuine frustration and outrage, a kind of reflex spasm of self-defense.

Every one since then has been so heavy on the "For shame, Mister President!" that it's all lapsing into unlistenable self-parody. You can't fight unreason with unreason. You just can't. Everyone knows you fight unreason with some well-placed bon mots and some Photoshop pictures of your enemy fucking a giraffe.

What I'm saying, people, is stop sending me the YouTube Olbermann links. As far as the "Special Comments" go, they're like that band, The Killers. Sure, the early work is OK, but now it's just trying too hard to give people what you think they want to hear. And I don't even like regular Springsteen, let alone some crappy Springsteen cover band.

I think I might have slightly lost the point there at the end, but I think the gist of it is well and truly gisted. Look at me, I'm gisting all over the place.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.7


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 1:38 PM