Politics

The second episode of The 1/2 Hour News Hour aired last night. I thought it was even less funny than the first episode. On the other hand, there was one segment where the correspondents were discussing various terrorist acts and trying to figure out what was the common thread between them. As the names of the perpetrators were read one after the other, it was obvious that the common thread was that they were all muslim. The joke was that the correspondents had a hard time figuring it out since everyone knows that "Islam is a religion of peace." Lisa thought that segment was quite funny. Me, not so much.

Via Andrew Sullivan, video of an interview of Obama from 2002 where he talks about Iraq.

Not only do I think Bush and Co. should be held accountable for being so wrong about Iraq, but I think (whether you like him as a presidential candidate) you've gotta give big ups to Obama for being so right about it.

Lisa and I watched the first episode of T1/2HNH last night. I thought it was weak and lame, a pale imitation of TDS. I can't imagine it surviving unless they can find a way to actually make it funny. The weekend-update-style alternating short news items from the anchors was OK for one segment, but I winced when they returned to it again for the next segment. None of the other segments were too impressive either. The faux ACLU PSAs were OK as satire and commentary, but they weren't funny (I was left thinking, "Yes, sometimes while protecting everyone's rights we have to protect the rights of people with despicable views and actions"...ironic, but not exactly a barrel of laughs).. Also, as I've mentioned before, I can't stand laugh tracks. The running Ed Begley, Jr. gag was a dud too. Frankly, until I heard Begley's commitment to environmentalism mentioned twice in one weekend (on Real Time too), I had no idea about him. Maybe the problem is that comedy isn't Surnow's specialty and that the show really needs to be infused with someone else's comic vision. The connection to reality that TDS has through the in-studio guest (where Stewart is forced to initiate a reasonable discussion with the guest...even if the guest is O'Reilly or McCain or Buchanan) was conspicuously missing too. I was left with the feel that I had just watched a collection of political-sketch rejects from SNL or In Living Color rather than a spunky, funny, yet coherent fake news show. If these first two pilots aren't lame enough to kill it, maybe they'll give it an overall makeover and new comic vision when it becomes an actual series.

Today Greg Fielder discusses David Kuo's book Tempting Faith : An Inside Story of Political Seduction including a lengthy quote from the book evaluating the fruit of the political engagement of evangelical Christians. This line that Kuo quotes from a pastor jumped out at me:

What we've done is turn a mission field into a battlefield.

First they said they would bring courtesy to the capitol. Then they said they had be bullies for the first 100 hours (to get their agenda through and to give the Republicans a taste of what it feels like), but afterwards they would run things the right way (to hear some of this rationalizing, listen to Act Three of Episode 325 of This American Life). Now this: from an article in today's Washington Post by Lyndsey Layton titled "In Majority, Democrats Run Hill Much as GOP Did":

In May, months before her party won control of Congress and she became speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said "bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute." After the election, Pelosi told the Associated Press: "The principle of civility and respect for minority participation in this House is something we promised the American people. It's the right thing to do." In the first weeks of the new Congress, however, Democrats bypassed the usual legislative committees, refused to allow any amendments and took their agenda straight to the floor for passage. They said they needed a clear path to pass a handful of popular measures that were the basis of their successful November campaign, including expanded money for stem cell research, an increase in the federal minimum wage and implementation of recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission. Democrats said they would impose "regular order," the rules that permit the minority to participate more widely, in short order. But even after passing their domestic agenda, Democratic leaders have continued to marginalize Republicans, preventing them from having a voice in legislation such as a bill to withhold federal pensions from lawmakers convicted of ethics felonies and a $463 billion bill to fund the federal government for the rest of this fiscal year.

"It sounds like we're not doing what we said we would do -- I understand that," House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday. "Here, however, we believe we are very justified in one of the most important issues confronting the country, which clearly was a huge issue in the election and which got bottled up in the Senate." Republican leaders have been complaining daily about being pushed to the margins. "It's hypocritical because they campaigned on openness and bipartisanship," said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), adding that shutting out the minority hurts Congress. "It stifles debate and ideas and also manipulates the outcome."

Let me paraphrase: "It sounds like we're not doing what we said we would do...because we are not doing what we said we would do." Help me, Obi wan Obama, you're my only hope!