A planet called America, part two.

This morning I walked into work and said something to one of my co-workers along the lines of, “So, is your life any better now that Osama is dead?” She looked at me said, “OMG, the President is dead?” And I said, “Huh? What? No. NO. Osama. Bin Laden!” And then she squinted, looked at me curiously, and said, “What the fuck are you talking about?” Just then another co-worker held up the front page of the newspaper which had a huge picture of the deceased terrorist mastermind on it and a massive headline that said “BIN LADEN DEAD.” Or maybe it said “BIN LADEN KILLED.” Honestly, I can’t remember anymore. But the headline was huge.

from here.

A week ago I said to a friend: “Dealing with your enemies is simple and easy. The best way to combat them is to simply make friends with them. Make friends with them so hard that it hurts.”

It’s so weird to me still that one of the time I felt most unified with this crazy, amazing, fucked up country was on 9/11. The wost metaphor I could use here would be: It’s like that girlfriend, the one who’s really fucking amazing, if a little weird, and way too good for you, and you just treat her like shit. She should really quit you and your bullshit. You just don’t appreciate her and for some reason she just won’t leave you. And you don’t realize how important she really is to you until someone else threatens here. Some clarity only comes to us on the precipice of great and terrible disaster. Life is funny like that.

Part of me is glad that Bin Laden wasn’t captured and forced to answer for his crimes to us and to the world in person, though I would have wanted that, of course. Part of me was glad to hear that this was finally over, that everyone who had been wounded by the tragedies that seemed to be dialed up at this man’s fingertips can now crawl just one more inch ever so slowly and painfully into the past. I wouldn’t really call this “justice “though because, well, there is no such thing as justice. Scales aren’t balanced because Bin Laden is dead. His life will never ever begin to be equal in worth to those lost on 9/11 or those who have put on an military uniform and defended a certain set of ideals and beliefs that we all take for granted every single minute. America is a brilliant, beautiful idea, but not a perfect one, and it can be hurt and it can be dented, but it’ll always be stronger than some cheap thug, no matter where he lives, no matter what he looks like, no matter what he worships. It can only be killed by those who give up on the idea, or who sell it out bit by bit in the name of “freedom.”

from here.

The death of what we consider to be an evil man on the other side of the world doesn’t bring back all those special people that we lost but hopefully it helps some people to breathe easier. Hopefully it reminds us why those people were special to us and hopefully we never forget what they meant to us. I’d like to say that hopefully it makes us appreciate each moment we have on this planet all that much more, but we should’ve been doing that long before now, and of course should continue doing that to the moment we draw our last breath. Hopefully someone like Bin Laden will never ever come close to challenging that idea every again.

I’ll admit to being conflicted or just confused about this news and how I should be feeling, but I’m lucky. Lucky to be here, lucky to be typing this in the land of the free, home of the brave. I’m lucky that I didn’t lose anyone ten years ago on that strange September day or in the fights and wars that followed. Who Osama Bin Laden is and what all of this means is something for you to decide. I can tell you that I don’t view this man’s death as closure, but honestly, I won’t look down on anyone who gets it from this news.

Thank you, mom. Thank you, God. Thank you, Barack Obama. Thank you, Donald Trump (with your stupid ass hair and head full of shit). Thank you, Pakistan. Thank you, India! Thank you, everyone who’s ever stood up for what they believed in and put that belief above themselves. Thank you, Bill Murray. Thank you, internet jokesters and “expert thinkers.” Thank you, Doctor Who. Thank you to the moon and to The Onion, both. Thank you, mainstream media. Thank you, “Mission Accomplished.” Thank you, those who agree with me, and thank you to those who would never agree with me in a million years. Thank you, Jack Donaghy, and thank you, Condoleezza Rice and thank you, Margaret Cho (for guest starring on 30 Rock). Thank you, strange new/old world that has such people in it. Thank you, post-Now. Thank you to everyone who thinks this matters and everyone who knows that it really doesn’t. Thank you to all those who never forget and especially thank you to those who are doomed to remember.

I saw this picture posted on the internet a little while ago…

…and I had a might good chuckle.

The terrorists are always winning. And the terrorists are always losing. And the battle will keep raging and hopefully we’ll never forget what we’re fighting for or who we should actually be fighting.

It’s doesn’t even matter that Superman’s no longer an American citizen or that The Rock had the #1 movie at the box office this weekend AND knew that Osama was dead before you did because…

Well, because the story’s not over and the dream is never ending.

And like PKD said, Maybe the Empire never ended?

Like fake MLK said, “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.”

It’s been over 24 hours now and tonight when I go to bed I’ll be thinking the same thing I was thinking last night, “Okay, so Osama’s dead. And what will tomorrow look like?”

Mad leakage.

Slightly out of context, if there is such a thing as “context” with us, this gave me a good chuckle:

via The Huffington Post (who really just embedded a video, but whateva).

Season of the witch.

In honor of Halloween and Tuesday’s election and Gawker‘s recent ridiculous and intriguingly lame (and anonymous) account of “I had a one-night stand with Christine O’Donnell,” we present to you a selection of comments from that very page…

“I’d be bitter too if an attractive MILF asked to come back to my place and I still couldn’t figure out a way to hook up with her. I’d be bitter, but at least I’d direct my angst towards my own failings, not run off to tell the Internet. What a douche.”

“Based on the title I was expecting Penthouse Letters. I can’t believe how anticlimactic this story is. This douche, nor his douche-roommate, couldn’t get laid.

It should have been titled, ‘BREAKING EXCLUSIVE! O’Donnell has hairy pubes, turns off anonymous dude.’

Anyway Gawker wins, it got my click, and it seems a million other people’s…”

“Dear Gawker, please tell me this man did not benefit financially from this story. This is a non-story story. It would have been relevant if there was deviant sexual intercourse, but not by much. it would have been “groundbreaking” if she’d made out and slept in the same bed with another woman.

But this? This is your exclusive? The title is misleading. You really should retitle it ‘Wax On, Wax Off: The True Story of Christine O’Donnell’s Bush.’ Because the only issue Americans care about is waxing.

Talking about O’Donnell’s sexuality is hard to avoid since many of her platform’s positions are related to the social issues of sex. There’s no way a candidate can say ‘I will stop America from having sex’ and not have constituents wonder if The 40 Year Old Virgin was written about her. So part of it is her own doing.

But why keep beating a dead horse? If you were trying to cast doubt on Christine O’donnells purity/integrity, you failed. O’Donnell is not a virgin. If you wanted the nitty gritty, contact the dude she slept with in college. Contact the witch dude she went on one date with. But don’t say you have an exclusive one night stand tell all when all you have is a dude who kissed and told.

There are many, many reasons not to vote for Christine O’Donnell. But the Ladybug costume and this douchenozzle with the photographic memory are not one of them.”

from here.

“Perhaps Ms. O’Donnell should consider changing her surname to Bush.”

“Remember Gawker, whenever you recall this particular stunt, NEVER GO FULL RETARD.”

“What a tool!

How do you get a women, naked and and natural in your bed, after only five minutes of initially meeting, and not close the deal?!”

“Actual irony here because this will bump her about 5 points and move people into her camp.”

“I think the real story here is an adult dude in a boy scout uniform unable to perform unless a vagina looks like that of an 11 year old.”

from here.

“Damn you, Gawker; damn you for making me feel sympathy for this woman.

The only silver lining here is that the author didn’t get laid. In light of what he wrote, I’d say he deserves a prolonged bout of involuntary celibacy. He’s also a coward for editing himself out of the pics.

That puts him somewhere above ‘Big Ben’ Mills of Peaches Geldof fame –illustrious company, right? — on the Great Big Scale of Douchebaggery™.

Bravo…”

“Damn 700,000+ pageviews. Christine O’Donnell in a ladybug costume is the new iPhone 4 leak.”

“Anonymous should have held out for a pageview check instead.”

And then there’s a post on Gawker noting that Christine O’Donnell has responded to the previous article. Below is a selection of comments from that page…

“I can’t believe they try to pull the woman card here. Someone who knows a candidate has a story with pictures, and people are actually against Gawker running it?

Just terrible. We’re talking about a candidate who won’t even give an interview to anyone but FOX, but would jump on Bill Maher any chance she got to expouse her craziness. Now we finally might have some insight into her real character, and its an invasion of privacy? GTFOH!

Remember that the person in question has pretty much offered themselves as holier than thou. A story like this about a young, single Hilary Clinton or Obeezy wouldn’t be a story at all, because those people don’t shove family values down people’s throats.”

“It’s amazing how many people feel empathy for Christine and decided to vote for her, because of that post. She deserves to be in the U.S. Senate now!!!
She’s the main beneficiary of the posting and should thank Gawker for the effort, besides sending an apology to Chris Coons.”

“RUH ROH!!!

Christine O’Donnell is closing in on Coon’s lead. According to the latest poll results O’Donnell has cut Coon’s lead in half in just the past two weeks.

And that is according to polls that were completed before Gawker’s latest attack on her character. According to the Washington Post an informal poll of female and independent voters in Delaware taken this morning found them to be more symphathetic to O’Donnell after this latest attack.

I just hope the Republicans show proper manners and thank Gawker Media for helping them win BOTH the Senate and the House instead of just the house. Perhaps they can name the bill to repeal the healthcare reform package (or maybe the one repealing the financial reform of Wall Street–or the one restoring the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy) after Gawker Media.”

“I didn’t see anything particularity sexist about reporting that O’Donnell is a lush.

Sure, the dude who was telling the story didn’t shy away from gender-based statements, but this story didn’t make Gawker because she’s a woman, but because she’s ridiculous.

In fact, her insanity up to now has actually helped her here. If this were a male candidate who got drunk and seduced a stranger, it would be the defining scandal of the election.”

“Two, separate issues here:

1. It was pretty despicable of Gawker to publish that article, especially some of the more hurtful personal details. That’s not nice.

2. Regardless, it shows that O’Donnell is a hypocrite and displays little to none of the introspection and self-awareness required to come to terms with her own nature as a human being. I’m not sure that that’s who we want voting on, say, who we go to war with.”

“I see a lot of people saying they are thinking about supporting her now because of this. Please, yes the guy was a douchenugget for airing his almost one night stand publicly but lets not forget that she is Palin level crazy and doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near a political office.”

Editor’s note: You have to love the different variations on the word “douchewhatever” that are used by the various commenters.

“I can’t tell you how much I hope this dopey twat and the rest of her ilk get their asses handed to them on election day.”

“I have to side with Gawker 60/40. The story shows Christine as human, dealing with a world that’s lots of shades of grey (just ask Cheney and his gay daughter). In this way, it’s a sad girl-meets-boy, girl-sorta-lets-boy-get-past-second-base-but-will-still-probably-have-to-spank-one-out-later story.

But she likes to tell people that there are not shades of grey, that your choices are either good or evil, and frankly it doesn’t take much to fall over to the dark side. And I can’t get behind that sort of ridiculousness because once you label them “evil” for masturbating, why not steal, or murder or even cut people off in traffic? What’s to lose? Evil is as evil does!”

“Sexist? Please. Put an idiotic hot male Republican and I’ll make the same ‘I want to hate fuck you’ comments.”

“Yeah, that article was pretty disgusting.

But trying to blame it on your un-involved opponent is too.”

“Christine O’Donnell reminds me of Margaret White (the character played so brilliantly by Piper Laurie in the movie Carrie): condemning sexuality while secretly relishing it.

‘After the first time, before we were married, he promised never again. He promised, and I believed him. But sin never dies. Sin never dies………..He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and I liked it. I liked it! With all that dirty touching of his hands all over me.’”

“I don’t know about ‘sexist,’ but publishing anonymous letters is pretty bush league.”

Editor’s note: I hope that was an intended pun.

“She could have had some sympathy out of this, but then she tries to tar Coons as somehow – what? – being involved with the Gawker story? Where the hell did that come from?”

“Sexual harassment? Isn’t that taking it a bit too far? Why is it that when women in politics are exposed it’s not alright, but when the men are exposed, the media tries their best to delve deeper and deeper into their personal lives? If O’Donnell hadn’t portrayed herself as a “pure religious virgin” in the media, I would think this story was unacceptable, but she IS portraying herself that way and I think that she should be exposed. I have no sympathy for this anti-gay, anti-sex, anti-masturbation, anti-abortion, and anti-first amendment bitch.”

“It was a terrible article. Full stop. I felt dirty and petty for reading it.”

Democracy in action.

What can I say…

Ukrainian Parliment!

The political process in action!

It sounds like a great name for a TV show. Maybe a sitcom. I just want to hear “Ukrainian Parliament” enter the lexicon. Maybe it could be used in the same way people try to use the term, “Thunderdome,” I don’t know. It definitely sounds like a lethal finishing move in the bedroom.

The words of your enemies.

President Barack Obama at the Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City, from here.

I’m just a bill.

from Wonder Tonic, a really great site.

Ha ha, no, but seriously.

from here.

“Historic and controversial,” they called it, and they can call it whatever they want because thankfully today, President Obama signed the health care/health insurance reform bill into law. Let’s hope it’s the first of many steps.

And not just baby steps.

You know Uncle Joe liked it, in his usual classy sorta way.

Nutritional menu labeling to go national, thanks to the bill. Nice. Here’s a fact sheet.

from here, fuck yeah!

Groundhog Day is right around the corner…

…and as Benjamin Light already showed you, we’re huge dorks.

and

and

Awesome tweets. And that shall be the first and the last time that I ever say that about anything, I think. I first noticed these here. And don’t forget: Counterforce’s 100 Greatest Moments of Lost are forthcoming. And the entire show is currently viewable on Hulu.

The art of politics.

“Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.”

-Henry A. Kissinger

from here.

“Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.”

-Harry S. Truman

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”

-Winston Churchill

from here.

Three quotes about politics.

Like it says there, three quotes about politics, which we sorely miss talking about here at Counterforce, and then we’ll call it a night.

Thank you, Hunter S. Thompson.

Quote #1:

“I don’t like it. I think the cables have a lot to do with it. I’ll take you back to when I was president – we got tons of criticism, but didn’t seem day in and day out quite as personal as some of these talk show people.”

That’s former President George H.W. Bush, during in an interview in Texas about the lack of civility in politics. The interview was supposed to be about his support for volunteerism, but he had to address how we can’t be nice to each other anymore because of the reception Obama was getting in Texas. He goes on to say:

“And it’s not just the right. There are plenty of people on the left. If you want me to name a couple of names, I’ll be glad to do that for you.”

Of course a reporter would love for him to go on from there…

“Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow – I mean here are a couple of sick puppies.”

This quote fascinates me, especially as Olbermann pointed out in his response on the Maddow show, this is from the man who arguably started the era of dirty political attacks we’re in now by employing guys like Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater, and the kind of shit that would eventually beget guys like Karl Rove.

It’s funny that the elder Bush then added: “And the way they treat my son and treat anybody that’s opposed to their point of view is just horrible,” as his reasoning for specifically naming Maddow and Olbermann. Cause that’s what he’s really upset about, I’m sure. The way they treated his son, yeah, which I believe, but that they attack people who don’t share their beliefs. That’s something that Bush, sr. really wants to stand up against, I’m sure.

Before I go onto my next quote, I want to share this link with you about an interesting supposition about the wedding storyline in the Archie comics – seriously – and how it’s an allegory for the state of America right now. What happened was: a few issues ago Archie proposed to Veronica, shocking everyone, and then in the most recent issue, he ended up changing his mind and instead proposing to Betty. The semi-serious gist of the post is:

“This is clearly a reference to America’s voting for Barack Obama, then turning against the very things he stood for, such as greater public healthcare coverage.”

Good enough for me, man.

Quote #2:

“Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or that do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

That’s former first lady Barbara Bush, wife of George H.W. Bush, is from March 17, 2003 when she was asked about the coming Iraq war. On it’s own the quote is just ridiculous and damning about this family of east coast intellectual elites who made a career out of posing as Texas good ol’ boys and “real Americans.” Taken within the context of the interview itself, the statement makes a little more sense, but only just a little more. But it was one of the first things that came to mind, along with “a thousand points of light,” when I hear the “sick puppies” comment.

The comment, of course, also reminds me of that Tony Kushner play, “Only We Who Guard The Mystery Should Be Unhappy” starring Laura Bush during the Iraq War. Ah, seems like it was just yesterday.

I don’t want to fully bash the Bush family, so it’s important to remember this, showing that they really aren’t all that bad.

And last, but not least…

Quote #3:

“Crime, boy, I don’t know.”

But in context, you’ll have to see it here:

“In the future, if you’re wondering, ‘crime, boy, I don’t know,’ is when I decided to kick your ass.”

That’s from the third season finale of The West Wing, entitled “Posse Comitatus,” and deals with President Bartlett, played by Martin Sheen, meeting his rival in the upcoming presidential election, Flordia Governor Robert Ritchie, a clear George W. Bush analogue played by James Brolin, backstage at a performance of “The War Of The Roses.”

My God, I miss this show, not because of it’s “liberalism,” or what most moderate liberals would call simply “common sense-ism,” but because it was just a solidly written, performed, produced show. Aaron Sorkin wasn’t always great with long term story planning (blame it on the cocaine?), but he had a playwright’s excellent sense of immediate personal drama in a single moment and doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his abilities with comedy, but that’s a story for another time.

This particular storyline dealt with President Bartlett being up for re-election, despite lying about having MS, and in a bid for a taste of the real world, he was going up against the Governor of Florida, essentially a take on GWB. The storyline was good enough, just hard to believe in that Bartlett was a great president and in this wonderful television world, you couldn’t believe he’d actually struggle in an election against such a moron. In real life, morons tend to have the advantage over the smart because of a successful attack on “intellectualism” that has been sweeping through this country during the past few decades, perhaps starting with the days of Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes?

Well, no, I wouldn’t give them all the credit for that, but Sorkin does point out that beyond Clinton fatigue, anti-intellectualism was a large part of the 2000 election contest between GWB and Al Gore. That, and outright thievery, but that’s a story that’s been told many times before.

The storyline between Bartlett/Ritchie essentially ended with their debate…

…in which Bartlett so mercilessly and effortlessly kicked his opponent’s ass that it seemed like science fiction. But it was so good. Not just for liberals, democrats, and “intellectuals,” but for people who liked good TV and were American porn enthusiasts. It’s Bartlett’s line in that debate – “I’m the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me” – that has strongly affected my rather simplistic view on politics. Left, right, right, wrong, smart, dumb, agreeing with the President, disagreeing with the President, or somewhere  drifting in between any of those so called absolutes, in this country, you’re still in America. Every part of America is “the real America,” it’s changing every single day, every single moment, and not necessarily drifting towards socialism just because you don’t understand it, don’t like, or are scared of the color of the skin that the man running the show has.

I’d love to throw out the question of why is it necessarily a bad thing to have a smart President who’s considered elite and recognized as being so? I’d love to, but that’s a losing debate amongst the hoi poilloi, I know. Oh, and to continue the tenuous thread between the here and now and the halcyon days of The West Wing, one of the many things I like that Barack Obama and Josiah Bartlett have in common: They’re both Nobel prize winners. :)

Motherfucker needs to be impeached!

Political commentary outrage presented without comment, found here.