NRO Newsletters . . . Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty
April 30, 2012
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Here's your Monday Morning Jolt!
Enjoy.
Jim |
| 1. White House Correspondents' Official Entertainment: Three-Dog Night
This just handed to me: It is officially okay to tell jokes about the president eating a dog. At the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday: Obama also brought up a theme that has hounded him recently.
In retaliation for Democrats harping on the old story of Romney tying the family dog to the roof of the car, many conservatives have pointed out that Obama ate dog when he was a boy in Indonesia -- an admission he wrote in his memoirs years ago. The president tied the dog issue into jokes about a few other popular topics.
In reference to Sarah Palin: "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? A pit bull is delicious."
About politics being a rough game: "My step father always told me it's a boy eat dog world out there."
On the rise of super-PACs: The president came equipped with his own mock super-PAC ad that promised "America's dogs cannot afford four more years of Obama; that is 28 years for them." Power Line's John Hinderaker notices: Politically, the most interesting phenomenon last night was the dog jokes. The President himself made three jokes about eating dogs. This represents a victory for new media and especially for Jim Treacher, since liberal news sources like the New York Times and Jon Stewart had studiously tried to pretend that the dog controversy didn't exist. Obama and Kimmel evidently recognized that Twitter made such pretense impossible. (The New York Times, however, is still holding out.)
Events like last night's always leave me feeling in need of a shower. Partly it is because there some truth to Kimmel's joke, after noting that the room was full of politicians, members of the media and celebrities, that "Everything that is wrong with America is here in this room." Partly [it] is due to the sense that everyone involved in the event is pretending. The politicians pretend to engage in self-deprecation that shows they don't take themselves too seriously. The comics pretend that they are just trying to be funny, lampooning politicians impartially in search of laughs. But, even though some of the lines are indeed funny, the premise of the event is fundamentally false. In fact, politicians, comedians and even the celebrities present are pursuing an agenda that is both self-aggrandizing and political. That is why, I think, such events always leave me feeling unclean. In the Corner, our Mark Steyn concurred: I share John Hinderaker's general line on the general loathsomeness of the White House Correspondents' Dinner -- I dislike both the self-flattering fake self-deprecation of the pols and the fawning defanged jabs of the comics. A ghastly business. But I also share his appreciation for the only novel aspect of last night's affair. My weekend column addressed Romney's dog-transporting and Obama's dog-eating -- the former referenced by New York Times columnist Gail Collins some four dozen or so times, the latter not at all by her or any other Times bigshot. And yet there was the President of the United States up on stage doing dog-eating shtick in front of the nation. That represents an amazingly swift victory for the man who, all but entirely via Twitter, injected the topic into the public discourse -- Jim Treacher.
Indeed, as The Atlantic's Garance Franke-Ruta wrote: My favorite DC/world disconnect at #WHCD dinner l[a]st nite was when frmr politico now in NY asked why Obama kept talking about eating dogs. It's not really a "DC/world" disconnect so much as a housetrained media/freelance bloodhound disconnect. If you rely for your news on the poodles of the Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc, or the self-neutered attack-dogs of the late-night comedy shows, you would, like Ms Franke-Ruta's friend, have been utterly in the dark. |
2. At the Very Least, TSA Agents Should Buy Us Dinner FirstYou may have heard that a senior State Department official declared recently that "the War on Terror is over." (You can come out now, Ayman al-Zawahiri! Olly olly oxen free!"
Jeffrey Goldberg shares the sad news that it turns out we lost: Okay, I now have definitive proof that al Qaeda has actually won. It hasn't achieved the dissolution of the United States, or succeeded in murdering millions of Americans, or re-established the Caliphate, but it has caused our government to debase itself in the name of security. To wit:
My mother-in-law was traveling home to Rhode Island from Washington Reagan airport this past Tuesday night when, passing through the TSA naked-porno machine, she triggered an alarm.
A bit of background before I continue: My mother-in-law, though youthful in outlook and an all-around very attractive person, is also 79-years-old, 4'11" if she's lucky, and weighs about 110 pounds. She was in Washington to visit her grandchildren, and to lobby the Rhode Island congressional delegation as part of the American Library Association's National Library Legislative Day. She is not a threatening person, in appearance or demeanor. I don't know this for sure, but I think she was probably carrying a library tote bag of some sort -- or perhaps it was an NPR tote bag -- as she approached the security checkpoint. A general rule: terrorists don't carry tote bags.
She entered the machine and struck the humiliating pose one is forced to strike -- hands up, as in an armed robbery -- and then walked out, when she was asked by a TSA agent, in a voice loud enough for several people to hear, "Are you wearing a sanitary napkin?"
Remember, she's 79.
My mother-in-law answered, "No. Why do you ask?"
The TSA agent responded: "Well, are you wearing anything else down there?"
Yes, "down there."
She said no, at which point, the friend with whom she was traveling, also a not-young volunteer library advocate, came over and asked if there was a problem.
The TSA agent said, again, in full voice, "There's an anomaly in the crotch area."
This is, of course, a painful post for me to write. Like most normal American men, I don't want to see the words "my mother-in-law" and "crotch area" in the same paragraph. Jazz Shaw adds: That may not be enough to convince you that there's still something amiss with the TSA, so as Goldberg points out, we can toss another shrimp on the barbie here with the tale ofCongressman Francisco "Quico" Canseco. It involves "aggressive moves toward the crotch" and the phrase, "Hey, I'm the guy who was assaulted." So you know it's a winner.
Enjoy your weekend, folks. I'll be flying again in two weeks. Maybe this time I'll try wearing something more provocative so I can research all of this "fun" that everyone else is having. "This is what it's come to. We have more to fear from our own government than the people they're supposed to be protecting us from," sighs the Lonely Conservative. |
3. Barack Obama : Fundraising :: Cal Ripken : Baseball Do you think we give President Obama too much grief about his relentless fundraising schedule?
I don't.
The nonpareil Toby Harnden: Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book.
Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.
The figures, contained in a new book called The Rise of the President's Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.
Doherty, who has compiled statistics about presidential travel and fundraising going back to President Jimmy Carter in 1977, found that Obama had held 104 fundraisers by March 6th this year, compared to 94 held by Presidents Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined.
Since then, Obama has held another 20 fundraisers, bringing his total to 124. Carter held four re-election fundraisers in the 1980 campaign, Reagan zero in 1984, Bush Snr 19 in 1992, Clinton 14 in 1996 and Bush Jnr 57 in 2004. (Pardon the Brits and their "Bush Jnr" abbreviation.)
WM at Weasel Zippers sees this and seethes, "He excels at two things and two things only: Running up enormous debt with other peoples' money and raising cash for his own self-serving ends. He is nothing more than an ordinary street hustler in an extraordinary position."
The Jammie Wearing Fool, on the other hand, is an optimist: Let's look at the bright side. When he's out there shaking down his fatcat supporters he's not actually working, so there's the chance he's actually doing less damage. But I guess in keeping with his adoring media we can call thishistoric and unprecedented. . . . Can't wait to see how many golf outings he's had in comparison with his predecessors. That'll be another record-breaker, no doubt. |
4. Addenda Is it a good omen for Republicans in the Massachusetts Senate race if Senator Scott Brown is draining basketball shots from half court?
As mentioned, I'm giving a talk today at the National Press Club in Washington. Here's the too-generous notice for my talk: Have you ever wondered how to make it big online as a journalist? To create your own unique presence in a sea of voices? If you have then don't miss this upcoming "Get it Online" Lunch & Learn sponsored by the Events Committee with National Review writer Jim Geraghty on Monday, April 30th from 11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m.
Geraghty is a blogger and regular contributor to National Review Online and National Review. He writes a daily newsletter titled "The Morning Jolt" blogs on "The Campaign Spot" at NRO and has over 19,000 followers on Twitter. Geraghty will join with members of the Club at lunch to discuss how to be successful as an online journalist and what it takes to be a journalist covering politics in DC.
Lunch will start promptly at 12 p.m. Prepared remarks will be limited to 15 minutes to maximize time for an informal discussion among the participants and Geraghty.
Seating is limited. Members should register in advance. There is no fee to register but you must be logged into the website in order to register. Members will provide their member numbers to the wait staff and pay for their own lunch.
For questions, contact Kim Bender at kimberlybender@gmail.com or Havilah Ross at hross@press.org. |
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