Archive for February 3rd, 2010
The reason why we have never learned how to make YouTube videos
Here’s a YouTube video Carly Fiorina made attacking her primary opponent, Tom Campbell.
It is, clearly, something we would have TOTALLY MADE ourselves, because we think it’s HILARIOUS.
It’s kind of boring until you hit the 2:20 mark, and then you can see why we think it’s funny.
SPOILER
A clarification on Marco Rubio
We wanted to take a moment to clear up something about Marco Rubio.
We very much want him to win the Florida GOP primary, and beat Charlie Crist to a shriveled, orange pulp.
We also want Rubio to win the Florida Senate seat as well.
But, there’s just something about the guy we don’t like — coming from our gut. It’s nothing he’s done. There’s nothing we know about him personally, aside from one story we heard about him being rude to someone we know once. But, everyone has an off day. Even people we really like have been rude, at times, especially on the campaign trail. Everyone has a bad day.
Since 2008 and all the fervor and fawning over Dr. Utopia began, it seems this nation has been hellbent on creating all sorts of magical saviors…out of very ordinary, mortal men. If you’re a religious person, you should believe there was only one Savior, and all the rest of this is just blasphemy.
We see conservatives, especially, trying so desperately to make various men into a phenomenon that’s the “anti-Obama” or “the new Reagan”. We also see you trying to make Sarah Palin into “Reagan in a dress”. Well, to be honest, Ronald Reagan wasn’t even “Reagan”, as defined by conservatives today. This “Reagan”, in quotes, is a mythical being very similar to the mythical, living-god the Left elevated Dr. Utopia into.
At some point in adult life the fairytale books should be put away. Public servants must never be described as dragon slayers or Lightbringers. They are our collective employees. They are not gods. They are not royalty. They are in office to serve the people. To be blunt, just about anyone who has ever run a business or managed more than five people can be an effective United States Senator if she or he applied for the job, was hired by the people, and set about working hard and doing the things a Senator is supposed to do. It’s stunning so few of the people who put themselves up for the job manage to get this right.
We think Rubio will be a great Senator. But, he is not a Lightbringer or dragonslayer. We do not think he is someone with untapped greatness within him. We also believe there’s just something about him, that we can’t put our finger on, that we don’t like.
We felt that way about Mark Sanford, when everyone we knew in Republican circles here in Chicago swore up and down that Sanford was “the new Reagan” and would be the 2012 nominee “for sure”. But, something wasn’t right about Sanford. Something wasn’t right about John Edwards, either, and when we realized that we stopped supporting him back in late 2004.
The other person who seems to be so loved by conservatives right now is Tim Pawlenty. There’s something off about that guy, too.
Now, we have no idea what it is with Rubio and Pawlenty we don’t like…and we’re sure you’ll excoriate us in comments and hatemail for not being specific, but we say this in full candor while stating clearly that we WANT Rubio to win. If Pawlenty was running for office in Minnesota right now, we’d want him to win, too. But, we don’t think either Rubio or Pawlenty belong in national office. This is not saying either of them will have Sanford or Edwards-esque flameouts, but we just see something in their faces, that they are hiding something.
90% of the time, when we get this feeling about a guy, it’s because he’s closeted…and we know well the strain hiding so much about yourself causes. Your eyes give you away, since you are forever focusing all of your energy on keeping the charm going, lest the spell you’re casting breaks and the world sees you for who you really are. On very rare occasions, when men are cheating on their wives or hiding some other secret, we see a similar strain in their eyes and on their faces, too. Almost as if they are repeating over and over again in their heads, “Don’t figure it out…don’t figure it out….don’t figure it out…”.
Rubio and Pawlenty are both hiding SOMETHING. It’s not that they are gay. It’s not that they are cheating on their wives. But, we think there’s something there, below the surface, and it makes us reticent to ever thrown ourselves into their campaigns.
This, for the record, is also why we came out against the national Tea Party Convention in Tennessee. We support the Tea Party Movement. We consider ourselves Tea Partiers. But, we just have a weird feeling about that Convention and the people running it. And we always trust our instincts with stuff like this.
Chalk that up to dating enough bad guys the last twenty years to be able to spot 90% of trouble a mile away, before it ever has a chance to hit us.
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UPDATE:
One last thing we want to say on this subject, and that’s regarding people we do go all-in for.
Because you come here everyday to a site called “HillBuzz”, you take it for granted that we are guys who go all-in for anyone. We’d go to absolute Hell and back for Hillary Clinton any day of the week. We’ve been that way since 1990, when one of us did a report on Clinton in high school, talking about her work as the First Lady of Arkansas, and her time with Marrian Wright Edelman in Boston working with children. One of our grandmothers knew Clinton in Little Rock, and told us she was the real deal. We knew, instantly, that was in fact true, and Hillary has never proven us wrong, in all these years. We’d take a bullet for the woman, and would do absolutely anything she asked of us, always. Because we believe in her 100%.
Now, this makes some of your heads explode, but we feel the same way about Sarah Palin. She, too, is the real deal. We know her heart, and it is a servant’s heart. We’d follow her into battle anytime she wants to lead the charge — by Facebook, or in person, whatever. You betcha.
We don’t know Scott Brown as well as either Clinton or Palin, but we instantly got the feeling from him that he, too, was the real deal. Yes, we joke about how hot and awesome he is. Because HE IS, hot and awesome. He’s Hottie McAwesome, for crying out loud. But, he’s also a good and decent man whom we believe has a role to play in saving the Republic.
It’s hard to explain, but there are certain people in life we believe are placed where they are for a reason…and have an energy and a spirit in them that we can detect, but can’t explain, that makes us take notice and rally around them. You can insert whatever spirituality you hold in your heart right here if you want. Our grandparents would have described these people as being on the side of angels. We say they’re playing for Team USA, because these people love America more than themselves.
Is that what this all boils down to, come to think of it?
Are the people we support those who would walk away from it all, give up all the perks and privilege, if that’s what they thought would be best for the country?
Hillary Clinton would do that.
Sarah Palin would do that.
Scott Brown would do that.
In a heartbeat.
Marco Rubio seems, to us, like he wants to be Senator because he wants to be called Senator, and will enjoy holding that office and farting in a big soft leather chair on Capitol Hill. He will do a good job. He’ll vote 99% of the time in the best interests of the country, we believe, but after a term or two in Washington, we believe he’ll become another of the entrenched royals who think of the seat they occupy as THEIR seat. That’s people like Barbara Boxer, Claire McCaskill, Dick Durbin, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, etc.
Oddly enough, despite all of his warts, Ted Kennedy himself never behaved this way. Others called it “The Kennedy Seat”, but in all the encounters anyone we’ve ever known had with Kennedy, he never behaved this way. His family did, but not him, not in regards to his role as Senator. We say a lot of bad things — deservedly so — about Ted Kennedy, but sitting in that leather chair all day being “important” was not why Kennedy was in the Senate.
We might be 100% wrong about Rubio, but he reminds us of this guy Jeff we know here in Chicago. He’s a ballet dancer by day, bartender by night. Built, from hours at the gym and all that lifting of beer crates all night, the guy swaggers around in tank tops in the dead of winter to show off his buff bod. 90% of the conversations he has are about how many people hit on him that day at work, or how everyone else at work does such a bad job and wishes they were him. He’s a good guy. When pressed, he can find other things to talk about. By all accounts, he does a great job at work and the bar is very happy with him. When he dances or performs in shows like Naked Boys Singing, man alive, the crowd just loves him. But, he’s the first one to tell you what a good job he did, or how loud the applause were for him.
We just picture Rubio getting into a car after a TV appearance and telling his driver how great he was, and how much people all across Florida loved him. If he could get away with it, we bet Rubio would be wearing his tank tops too. He, like Jeff, is the kind of guy we picture getting dressed in the morning, staring at himself in a full length mirror in his boxer briefs, doing a Billy Crystal, “You look maaaahhhhvelllllussssss” to himself.
That’s the vibe we get off him. He really, really, really wants to be Senator….instead of really, really, really wanting to go to Washington to serve the people of Florida.
Will he serve the people of Florida when he gets there?
Hells yah, because he wants to keep being Senator.
But, we don’t believe he will ever work hard JUST for the betterment of his constituents. He will work hard, which is a rare enough thing in the Senate to warrant rooting for Rubio, but he’ll do it because he wants to be rewarded with the pomp and circumstance of a Senator’s life…not because he is a true servant of the people.
Does that make sense?
Class vs. Crass: A History of First Ladies
H/t Chrissy the Hyphenated
Eleanor Roosevelt was often joked about, in that people in the 40s swore she was “everywhere”: visiting miners at work in coal mines, traveling through war zones cheering on the troops, spending more time in hospitals with patients than some doctors did. She was tireless, determined, and the living embodiment of all that was good about America, representing the heart and soul of the people everywhere she went.
Michelle Obama’s pledge to support military families is, so far, just a joke. In 2009, she managed to visit just three military bases, never leaving the eastern seaboard. The number of magazine photo shoots and articles she’s been interviewed for about her unique “fashion sense” were in the dozens. The nation eagerly awaits the day Mrs. Obama takes a wrong turn at some point in the White House and comes face to face with the portrait of Mrs. Roosevelt. ”Who’s that old lady?”, she’ll most likely wonder. “There should be a picture of me hanging there, in one of my outfits. We won, you know.”
Here’s hoping an intern or paige fills her in on some of the women who’ve held her honorary position before her — and let her know how they spent their time in the White House…and outside the mansion too, keeping their promises and traveling the world to better the lives of our men and women in uniform.
Class vs. crass.
Is Katie Couric going to be fired soon?
Rumor has it network executives at CBS are insisting Katie Couric take a paycut.
She’s currently paid the equivalent of 200 staffers, who’d make $75,000 a piece. That’s an awful lot of money for newsrooms full of people who still can’t get the news right, who refuse to even conceal (let alone eliminate) their Liberal bias, and who are blind to the fact that American viewers are sick and tired of the MSM being nothing more than the propaganda arm of the current White House.
Couric has been an absolute disaster on the air since day one. She makes $15 million a year, and took over the newscast when it was in third place, making it even more in third place since she started.
Couric was terrible to Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and awful to Sarah Palin in the general election. So, there are no tears being shed for Couric here at Buzzquarters, now that it’s being rumored new daytime TV assignments are being considered for her, when she gets the boot from the evening news.
The Home Shopping Channel needs someone to sell discounted dog food from 830-1030 am on Wednesdays. Couric would be perfect for that. She’s so cheerful, and people needing to buy discounted dog food off the television so early in the morning could use some cheer.
Couric’s also very little in person, so doing a show where she has to crawl through small spaces, and report on what she finds there would be good for her. She could star in a live-action, reality show version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, taking a camcorder with her in the sewers under New York, to see if there really are any C.H.U.D.S. there, as many have long believed.
Another good place for Couric to land would be on ABC’s “The View”, where she would easily be the second or third stupidest person on the panel (third or fourth on days Claire McCaskill stops by for enlightenment). And that’s saying something, about “The View” more than Couric, but still.
We just find it amusing how many people who attacked Clinton and Palin seem to be getting major comeuppance since 2008.
Almost as if Hera looks down from Mount Olympus and spits right in their faces.
Not saying that’s what’s happening (but it’s totally what we think is happening).
BREAKING: Hottie McAwesome demands to be seated immediately
This is really interesting, because Scott Brown was scheduled to be sworn-in as a Senator at 12 noon on February 11th (next Thursday).
But, now he’s filing papers demanding to be seated immediately.
What’s going on?
It FEELS like Democrats are planning on voting on something crazy before next Thursday, using Paul Kirk’s illegitimate vote as the deciding factor (while they think they still can). As we understand things, Kirk is no longer a Senator. His appointment expired on January 19th, but he’s kept voting, illegally, since then. If you have a cat, or even a dog or parrot, those animals have as much right to vote in the Senate as Paul Kirk does today. Maybe even more of a right, since there are some cats and dogs that are just ADORABLE. Paul Kirk? Not so much with the adorable.
What are Democrats up to?
What’s Hottie McAwesome doing to stop them?
Why the sudden need to be seated immediately when he agreed to the February 11th start day previously?
Question: Can any Democrat win the presidency in 2012?
We believe a Republican will be elected president in 2012 — and if she wants it, that Republican will be Sarah Palin. If, for whatever reason, the Governor chooses not to answer the call and serve her country in its highest office, the 45th President will be either Mitt Romney or a conservative governor who is not currently on the radar. It will not be Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, John Thune, Time Pawlenty, or any of the other loser candidates the MSM so desperately tries to foist on the GOP.
Democrats, and the MSM (which, to be honest, are really one and the same at this point), don’t realize this yet, but America really has woken up and is angry at the things Liberals are doing in power.
Yesterday, here in Boystown, we hung around the polling place and caught up with some friends who were election judges, for the Illinois primary election. What they told us was ASTONISHING.
Being a rare February election, turnout was light, of course. Few young people showed up. Most of the voters were elderly, and while they chose Democrat ballots for this primary election, a lot of them seem to be voting Republican in the fall, if Democrats continue to come off as crazed liberals to these seniors.
People are mad.
The DNC doesn’t realize HOW MAD.
No one appreciates the fact that whatever magic Dr. Utopia had, it’s worn off now. Reality’s set in. People don’t believe the employment situation’s going to get any better for the next two years under this Democrat president.
The general sense is that it’s party time in Washington. The longer this goes on — with the “fashion icon” First Lady, and all of her lavish trips, her Wednesday cocktail parties, and her hectoring to shop at Whole Foods while most people are struggling to make enough to eat — the more people will want “change they can really believe in, this time”, come 2012.
Short of using the media to trick Republicans into running a losing candidate, like Jindal or Pawlenty, we don’t see how Dr. Utopia can win a second term. Not even with ACORN, the SEIU, the Black Panthers, the entire Race Industry, and every news outlet squarely behind him.
To be honest, even if he doesn’t seek a second term, or is defeated in the primary by Hillary Clinton, we don’t think Democrats can hang onto the White House in 2012.
The level of incompetence and ineptitude in the current administration is so high, and this president is so tone deaf to the wants and needs of voters, that it sure feels to us that there’s a mighty reckoning coming.
We think Dr. Utopia and his unicorn-riders have permanently damaged the Democrat brand. It will be a long time before the nation trusts Democrats with the highest office in the land.
Now, 2012 is a long ways off. A lot can happen in two years. We’re sure David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel are hard at work on a re-election strategy for Dr. Utopia. It’s clear “Hope and Change” was a one-time deal and can’t be used again. So, no doubt, some new tactics will be pulled.
We’re wondering what you think this current administration can use to win independents back, who have broken big for Republicans in the last three major elections held (NJ and VA governors and MA Senate).
Without the indepdendents, Dr. Utopia doesn’t win a second term.
How dangerous and radical do you think the Democrats will get if they think they have no future and know “this is it” in terms of being in power for a while?
Do you think there’s hope for ANY Democrat to win the White House in 2012?
Maureen Dowd is just rambling into a tape recorder at this point
Maureen Dowd wrote a piece today about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” that could have been opined by Little Edie, in one of her costumes, on the porch at Gray Gardens.
But, Lil’ Edie would have looked FABULOUS doing it.
Maureen Dowd, not so much. Her ramblings are whispered into a tape recorder, late at night, while she’s hiding in her neighbors’ crawl spaces, munching on their cereal.
A lot of you write in to ask us what we think about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and gays serving in the military. In short, to answer your questions:
(1) The greatest regret of our lives is the fact that we were never able to wear the uniform and serve our country in the military because we’re gay, and we could never lie about it, or who we are.
(2) We’ve dated enough Marines and Navy guys to tell you there are FAR MORE gays in uniform than you would ever guess — and all of them live in terror of someone jealous of them, or mad at them about something stupid, ruining their careers by outing them.
(3) We think it’s an enormous waste of resources to train military personnel, especially in areas like foreign language translation, and then eject them from service after they’ve been outed. We should not be throwing away money like this.
(4) Sam Nunn’s fantasies about submarines turning into disco shower contest emporiums if DADT was repealed are just ridiculous. We know disco shower contests. We’re quite fond of disco shower contests. Submarines will never be disco shower contest emporiums. With apologies to Lloyd Bentson, Nunn’s just so ridiculous when it comes to this. As noted in (2) above, there are already gays on those submarines. Chances are, everyone on the sub knows who they are already. Being open about it, and removing the terror of someone losing his career at any moment, should only HELP morale, not hinder it. Keeping secrets and living on edge all the time can’t possibly produce the best in anyone.
(5) The government and churches are never going to stop some guys from liking other guys, or some women from liking other women. Try as they might. It’s not going to happen. It is a waste of time, resources, and energy to pretend gay people don’t exist. The military should hold gay service members to the same standards it holds the straight ones. If hetero troops aren’t allowed to fraternize, then don’t let the gay ones do that either. Nobody’s asking for special treatment, just equal treatment…and the ability to pursue a career in the service without living in constant terror of being thrown out because someone figures out how dreamy you think Jake Gyllenhaal is in Jarhead (hint: super, extra, mega dreamy).
We live in a world where a certifiably insane woman who hides in her neighbors’ crawl spaces, eats their cereal, and rambles into a tape recorder in the dark has a nationally syndicated column, and whose opinions and ramblings are taken seriously by dozens of people.
So, if that’s allowed, then why not let gay service men and women be themselves without fear of retribution?
