| Editor's Note: Jonah will be back to filing your favorite "news"letter next week. In the meanwhile, we editorial lackeys laughed out loud reading this blast-from-the-past G-File originally sent on September 23, 2010, and we trust you will too.
Dear Reader (and the Mentat Thufir Ponnuru who deduced the contents of this "news"letter years ago after an overdose of sapho juice and some bad clams), So I finally caught an episode of Undercover Boss the other night. I thought it was arguably the most brilliant piece of pro-corporate propaganda since the launch of NBC's Green Week (do not get me started on Green Week). If you haven't seen the show, the gist is pretty obvious (unless you guessed it's somehow about Bruce Springsteen solving crime, in which case it's either not pretty obvious or you are pretty stupid -- which would be impossible, given the wisdom you've shown in subscribing to this "news"letter). Anyway, just in case, here's the idea: A CEO climbs down from his corporate keep and goes in mufti amongst the lower peons of his business empire to find out how the business really works and, natch, to learn some heartwarming lessons about the nobility of work and all that. It's a brilliant idea for a reality show but a terrible cliché otherwise. This is an ancient plot device. Odin and Zeus used to dress-up like lumpen proletariat to get jiggy with the mortal girls (hence the famous line in the Asgard men's bathroom, "Mortal Girls Are Easy," and the less famous one in the Olympian locker room, "For a Good Time Ensorcell Rhonda"). A disguised Prince Hal boosted morale at Agincourt. In Brubaker, a new prison warden (Robert Redford) checks in among the inmates to learn about the conditions first hand, only to discover the inmates are living the life of Riley and those no-good meddling reformers are hell-bent on ruining everyone's good time. (Hey, that's how I remember it.) And that just scratches the surface. Who can forget the Oscar-robbed The Prince and Me with Julia Stiles and some other people? Oh, wait. Everyone can. Anyway, the episode I watched followed the CEO of 7-11. He spent a week working at various "Sevvy" franchises, including one of the most profitable stores in the system, as well as the one that sells the most coffee in the entire chain of some 36,000 stores. That was the first giveaway that this was going to be one long commercial for 7-11. As everybody knows, there's no difference between good flan and bad flan, but there is a huge difference between a well-run 7-11 and a badly run one. Yet somehow the producers couldn't find a single 7-11 where the hot dogs on the perpetual rollers have been there since the Harding administration. Apparently, they just couldn't locate a 7-11 where what appears to be brown caulking between the bathroom tiles . . . isn't caulk. The franchise with coffee that smells like a long-haul trucker's urine after a healthy portion of asparagus and the storage room containing both an unlicensed chinchilla ranch and a very confused man in a ballerina outfit handcuffed to the sprinkler pipe also completely escaped their notice. But -- polish your Emmy now! -- they did find one super-clean franchise where a couple fluorescent lights were out. This outrage against public safety, professionalism, and All 7-11 Holds Dear so shocked the CEO, he immediately ran out to the parking lot and, instead of pulling open his shirt to reveal his Superman outfit, whipped out his cell phone and called the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of the boss of the guy who would normally get around to changing the bulbs. When the Jews on the Russian shtetl were being harassed by Cossacks, they would often naïvely complain, "If only the czar knew!" This is sort of the same thing. Just swap "Fluorescent bulb out in aisle 3" for "The Cossacks burned my barn." The most brilliant propaganda came with the CEO's discovery that one franchise -- contrary to corporate policy -- was throwing away all of its perishable pastries every night instead of giving them to soup kitchens and other charities. The CEO was outraged, but it was the perfect outrage from a P.R. standpoint. The CEO got to show that 7-11 has a heart while slyly also letting the world know that all the pastries are served fresh every day. Every storyline worked the same way. Every employee was a saint whose greatest shortcoming was that he cared too much or was too talented. The CEO was like Good King Richard returning to give the Sheriff of Nottingham his comeuppance, feed the poor, and knight Robin Hood. Of course, it makes total sense that the show would work this way, because no CEO is going to agree to get all shlubbed out only to help expose his own company as a hotbed of villainy and sloth and a leading purveyor of mystery meat stewed in e. coli. Anyway, I could easily go on too long ("Uh: 'Could'?" -- The Couch), but I was just so impressed with the shameless gall of it all. Anyway, I will stop now. On the Next Episode of Undercover Boss Okay, I know it really seemed like I was about to stop there, but I just had a great idea. They should do a show where Rich Lowry goes undercover to work with the guys and gals in the trenches at NRO. Returning from his "research villa" on the Aegean, Lowry could toil with the associate editors, chained to their drafting tables like so many Korean animators. He could spend a day in the editorial hot box, where such miserable wretches as Stephen Spruiell and Kevin Williamson are locked away until they almost literally sweat out another editorial on debt reduction or steel tariffs. For once Lowry would have to tie Ponnuru's shoes and hand-crush each cube of ice for Kathryn's margaritas. Potemra could swing by Lowry's desk instead of poor Helen Rittelmeyer's and drop some 500-page tome in the original Greek in Lowry's lap with the order "Summarize this by morning." Oh, and Chaka, sweet Chaka, could finally be the one swinging the sweat-sock full of rusty bolts and rolled-up quarters. What's That Now? And now we interrupt this waste of your lunch hour with a brief interlude of substance. I loved this bit from Dahlia Lithwick, Slate's esteemed legal correspondent (hat tip RP): I have been fascinated by Christine O'Donnell's constitutional worldview since her debate with her opponent Chris Coons last week. O'Donnell explained that "when I go to Washington, D.C., the litmus test by which I cast my vote for every piece of legislation that comes across my desk will be whether or not it is constitutional." How weird is that, I thought. Isn't it a court's job to determine whether or not something is, in fact, constitutional? And isn't that sort of provided for in, well, the Constitution? This is awesome. It's not just that Lithwick dismisses a perfectly sensible and mainstream argument. It's not just that she is ignorant of the contents of the actual Constitution (it does not provide for the Supreme Court serving as the either sole or final arbiter of what is constitutional). It's not that she seems to have forgotten Marbury v. Madison. It's not that she cannot grasp the idea that some legislator might not want to vote for unconstitutional legislation. No, what really makes this great is the absolute bunkered pomposity behind her instinctual certainty that anyone who disagrees with her bouillabaisse of ignorance and ideology must be "weird." Ah, TV Season Is Upon Us Yes, I will be chiming in about 2010 TV fare. But, remember, my schedule is complicated so I don't always see stuff as it airs. I did watch the first episodes of Lone Star and Boardwalk Empire, but I was less impressed on both scores than were many of the fancy-pants critics who wear belts. Still, both show promise. Oh, and the missus and I have watched the new "Just Desserts" Top Chef and despite the fact we generally hate it, it's oddly compelling, thanks to the very weird people (weird men, really) who become pastry chefs. I used to love the expression "gayer than the volleyball scene in Top Gun," but I think I'll have to switch to "gayer than the male cast of Just Desserts." Don't Tread on Akbar! Since Ole Miss didn't adopt Admiral Akbar as their mascot, I'm thinking that he might make a good mascot for the Tea Party Caucus next year, when the appropriators try to seduce the new Rebel Alliance into joining the Dark Side. And, by selecting a unifying symbol with the name "Akbar," we can push back on the notion that conservatives are Islamophobic. Various & Sundry
Good news for the gentlemen out there. You have a new totally legit reason to buy Playboy. From a reader: Hi Jonah, In response to a reader challenge of a Playboy article calling Hitler a "right-wing radical," Playboy says you are wrong on Nazis in your book Liberal Fascism. I just wanted to alert you to it so that you can defend your position, but I am also interested in hearing your rebuttal. Their comments can be found in the October 2010 issue on page 134 in the Reader Response. Cheers! Well, if Playboy says I'm wrong, I guess I better refund everyone's money. Read the Enterprise Blog! People, I really need all of you to read the Enterprise Blog. I'm supposed to be driving traffic over to AEI's website, and so far all I've done is litter the place with empty beer bottles and, soon, piles of "research" for my exhaustive response to Playboy. You can read it for my posts, or you can read it for the good ones. I don't really care about your motives, just please bookmark it and then hit reload a billion times this afternoon like a cocaine-study monkey looking for one more sweet, sweet pellet. Speaking of science, is your son watching Top Chef Just Desserts? If so, you might be interested in this article on "pre-homosexuality." Get your prescription of Homocil now! Back to School. It's about two weeks before the publication of Proud to Be Right, edited by yours truly. You can read a bit about it here. Obama administration releases revised list of "You Might Be A Redneck" Jokes. Okay, I made that up, but this is making the e-mail rounds:
You might be a redneck if: It never occurred to you to be offended by the phrase, 'One nation, under God.' You might be a redneck if: You've never protested about seeing the Ten Commandments posted in public places. You might be a redneck if: You still say 'Christmas' instead of 'Winter Festival.' You might be a redneck if: You bow your head when someone prays. You might be a redneck if: You stand and place your hand over your heart when they play the National Anthem. You might be a redneck if: You treat our armed forces veterans with great respect, and always have. You might be a redneck if: You've never burned an American flag, nor intend to. You might be a redneck if: You know what you believe and you aren't afraid to say so, no matter who is listening. You might be a redneck if: You respect your elders and raised your kids to do the same. You might be a redneck if: You'd give your last dollar to a friend. | 
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