Congress demanding answers about potential wrong-doing and a president stonewalling while claiming that executive privilege is being threatened, and so he’s trying to offer half-assed compromises that will leave his people the option of lying privately with no chance of consequences instead of lying publicly and facing perjury?
Am I the only person who’s flashing back to Nixon/Watergate?
Because if that’s really what we’re seeing here, then the next thing to happen should be that there’s a Deep Throat who conveys to a newspaper reporter/reporters a chain of evidence that leads directly to the President, i.e., that the President ordered the attorneys fired because they weren’t in lockstep with his policies and furthermore ordered his AG to lie about it. I think we’re going to see the questions being raised of just how much the President knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it. And something tells me Bush doesn’t want us to know the answers to those questions.
PAD
• 
Posted by: Pat Nolan at March 27, 2007 11:48 PM
Thank you all…. You have proven my point immensely. Bush is the devil. Im going to slit my wrists. If any want to continue, you have my email. You have moved on to more important issues.
Ah, yes, of course… the old “sour grapes” routine.
Troll.
Shrouded.
Tim Lynch — Add me to the list of people praying and pulling for your mother’s complete and total recovery. Oh, and it’s good to have you back.
I made no such vow. If one of us has made and broken any vows, it’s you.
And who’s the bigger fool: the fool with no life or the fool who throws away his life to argue with fools?
There’s a scene in Awakenings where Robert DeNiro is slipping back into his catatonia, chastizing Robin Williams for neglecting the love available to him, raging, “you have no excuse, you have no excuse.”
I’m going to live another 60 years, and I have plenty of time to indulge in “a fool in his folly may become wise.” What’s your excuse?
Pat Nolan –
You have moved on to more important issues.
I’m sorry, who are you again?
I didn’t bother reading the entire thread before posting…
Mike –
Your construction of a Ptolemic-solar-system-style convolution to parse the heliocentric-simplicity of my point
Based on the fact that we shouldn’t have to break out a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an encyclopedia just to make any @#$%ing sense whatsoever of what you’re saying, you’ve lost, Shrouded Boy.
Back to Pat Tillman: if you go to http://www.espnradio.com, they have a link to the audio from The Big Show there on the main page under the Tillman Investigation box.
And good luck to you and your family, Tim. It’s good to hear things are hopefully on the right track.
“Ironic death ranks close to the same. The Darwin Awards’ book sales would indicate that lots of us love ironic or stupid death. Nothing really wrong with that.”
I think it all goes back to Voltaire’s famous quote: “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.” I suppose it depends whether you think that making observations about life’s cruel ironies is, in and of itself, cruel. Personally, I don’t.
PAD
Mike Blogging Guide in 8 Easy Steps
1. Agree with noone. (even if you agree.)
2. If problem with above, then find tiny piece a poster states and blow out of proportion as if it is a major point of difference.
3. Blog strings are for fighting, not a give and take discussion.
4. You have nothing to learn from someone else.
5 Those who disagree with you are not only wrong, but they are only an opponent that is not yet vanquished (Have at you!)
7. As an Official Opponent, it is A-OK to call an Opponent’ morals and ethics into question simply for disagreeing with you.
8. Because of the above, Mike’s actual ideology becomes irrelivant, because frankly he could be a Northern Baptist, neo-Calvanist, Libertarian and he would still pick fights with other Northern Baptist, neo-Calvanist, Libertarians.
Mike you are not shrouded. Personally I think you make many good points, but once… just ONCE I’d like you to don a Barney costume and sing, “I love you…. You love me…… We’re a happy family….”
—Captain Naraht
P.S. How about “Love Train”? Do ya like the O’Jays? How about “I’m gonna love you forever” by Randy Travis…C’mon! It’s RANDY! You must like Randy….
Mike says
I never said Bouley laughed at Tony Snow getting cancer.
Yet, as he “admits that this is a terrible thing to think, so I guess that makes it all right” — Bouley “[acknowledged] a deficiency in laughing at Tony Snow’s cancer.”
I’m sorry but I’m still not getting you. It seems as though you are trying to make Bouley’s comments a joke so that my finding them contemptable will be evidence of hiprocrsy on my part since I found the circumstances of a stranger’s death amusing.
The problem with this is that A-as I keep saying, to no apparent effect, I fail to see any evidence that Bouley was joking. There is nothing ironic in Snow getting cancer. It isn’t like Jesse Helms contracting cancer from the tobacco he spent so many years protecting or Ted Kennedy being dragged into a pit of quicksand by the watery corpse of som girl who drowned in 1969. Even then one would hope that the first reaction would not be gloating over someone’s death. Bouley’s point was that he hates George Bush and anyone associated with them and that his initial thought upon hearing that a spookesman got cancer was something along the lines of “Well, that’s what you get for being so evil.”
As opposed to how most people of any political stripe felt when they heard about Elizabeth Edwards, which was more along the lines of “How terrible. I hope she’ll be ok.”
I see no contradiction in condemning Bouley and at the same time admitting that there can be humor in tragedy. The death of the unfortunate deaf woman was amusing only because of the irony involved. It was in no way personal. I don’t know if she spent her time nursing injured cats back to health or throwing anthrax spores into the faces of orphans. He death in no way offered an opportunity to advance my political views. Like the winners and runner ups in the Darwin Awards, this is a case where the lack of any personal knowledge of the people involved makes it possible to laugh at what is, to those who knew them, a tragedy.
To me this isn’t even a case of apples and oranges but opinions may differ. I can’t help but laugh at things that others may not–my sense of humor tends toward the dark and tht’s the way it is–but I certainly would hope that I never find myself gloating over the illness of someone who I think “deserves” it because they have the temerity to disagree with me. I think that’s when one has slipped from mere partisan to genuine creep.
(There are exceptions. Pol Pot could have fallen into a fire ant hill for all I care. I’d buy a Mousselini pinata if anyone were smart enough to put one out (or would that be too obscure?))
Bill, I thought we were getting along.
As did I, which is why I was willing to engage you in conversation.
You call bûllšhìŧ on my typo, I rephrased. I consider your citing the “awfulness” of Bouley for his comments, while dismissing the inhibition against laughing at the deaf girl’s death, to be an existential typo.
And please note that I did consider the liklihood that it was a typo. I did not assume that you were deliberately putting out false info. There are so many bad numbers and stats thrown around that it has become very difficult to seperate reality from fiction.
And again, since I did not gloat or otherwise exploit the death of the girl to further my own political agenda I don’t see the contradiction.
You’ve always baffled me as to why you refuse to rephrase your existential typos. As I said before, I now have a paradigm on this that allows me to form a cogent model of reality. But as to the advantage to you in persisting, I am still baffled as to what it is. If I’m interpreting Susan Faludi correctly, it baffles all of feminism as well.
We may just be fated to baffle each other. I really don’t understand paradigms for constrcuting models of reality. I’m a simple guy; my model of reality is the one Phillip K Ðìçk had–“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
How I’ve managed to baffle all of feminism I can only wonder, but it does make me feel special and powerful.
Okay, I’m going to do something cccrrraaaazzzzyyyy… I’m going to post something on topic:
Earlier in this thread I opined that the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys probably wasn’t illegal, and that drawing parallels to Watergate was a bit of an overreach. I’m beginning to change my mind.
As more and more facts punch their way through the layer of noise and spin that always surrounds such scandals, it’s becoming clear that these firings were part of an attempt to politicize the justice system. That’s unethical at the very least, and probably illegal as well.
This is part and parcel of what’s been an ongoing and disturbing trend in the Bush administration: the tendency to politicize departments and agencies that of a necessity need to remain independent. For example, those who claim that Bush was the victim of bad intelligence about Iraq are apparently ignorant of numerous complaints from the intelligence community that Bush had been pressuring them to come up with the “right” evidence and the “correct” conclusions. Past presidents have recognized that rational, objective intelligence reports were vital to good decision-making. This realization eluded, and continues to elude, Bush.
In much the same way, it doesn’t surprise me that the Justice Department has become similarly corrupted under Bush. Even if he himself didn’t directly order the firings, I think it’s clear that they’re in alignment with his general attitude and approach. Bush has created a culture of disregard for the “firewalls” that keep certain agencies and departments independent of political manipulation. The last president who exhibited these traits to this same extent was Richard M. Nixon, with his “enemies list” and use of the CIA and FBI to harass political opponents.
“of a necessity need to remain independent”
Could I have been any more redundant?
“Could I have been any more redundant?”
Of a needed necessity need to remain independently independent for their needed independence.
Well, you did ask.
There’s another wrinkle to this attorney thing. People here might be amused by it:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/03/porn_and_the_doj.php
The US attorney is an appointed position. They serve only so long as their bosses want them to. No contracts, no elections, and for whatever reason, if someone higher up in the chain of command decides they aren’t the person for the job…for whatever reason…that’s the end of it.
Which is not to say at all that such decisions have no consequences. If the motive behind the replacements doesn’t sit well with the voting public, they have the chance to address that in the next election. With the US Attornies, the only termination that might be illegal would be a discriminatory one, say firing a black/white/yellow/polkadotted attorney to replace them with a yellow-striped one, and for no other reason. But if they were replaced because they weren’t following the mandates from higher up, there’s no real illegal action involved.
Do you reject everything you have to look up in a reference book to know? Built the internet you’re viewing these pages on from memory, did you?
As you dismiss altogether the notion Bouley was trying to be facetious, his remark is now less severe than yours simply because he didn’t joke and you did.
As far as Bouley simply asked questions and “admits that this is a terrible thing to think,” he was not gloating.
Jerry Falwell didn’t ask, “Well, with all these liberals and homosexuals who have as much access to the media as moral Christian folks, how could the World Trade Center crashes not have happened?” If he had asked such a question, someone could have answered him, and he wouldn’t have had to apologize for anything. Instead he unambiguously said that God killed 3,000 Americans because of liberal and homosexuals practices.
Asking questions leaves access to the agenda itself open. Gloating implies a mind that is made up.
Posted by: Bobb Alfred at March 28, 2007 02:01 PM
No contracts, no elections, and for whatever reason, if someone higher up in the chain of command decides they aren’t the person for the job…for whatever reason…that’s the end of it.
If that’s true, then why has the lawyer for a Gonazles’ aide said his client will refuse to answer questions about this scandal at upcoming Senate hearings, citing her privileges under the Fifth Amendment? I continue to strongly suspect that some laws have indeed been broken here.
The fifth is probably being claimed to protect the underlying reasons, which could be viewed very unfavorably by the public. Despite the fact that Bush cannot be re-elected (yet…I won’t cross off that possibility until we see someone else taking the oath), this administration and party are still smarting from the last election…the one Bush wasn’t running in…and the GOP lost control of Congress, largely because of massive negatvie public reaction to the Bush administration. The GOP probably fears a repeat in the next round of elections, and so is shy about revealing what could be used to oust even more GOP elected officials simply for being Republicans.
And those unrerlying causes might in fact reveal some illegal acts. But those would be acts other than the US Attorney replacements. Like most good scandals, the first hints you get about it are usually not the biggest concerns, or even something you’d normally be concerned with. But they encourage you to dig a little deeper, and it’s that underneath stuff that really gets interesting.
“Bush had been pressuring them to come up with the right evidence and the correct conclusions. Past presidents have recognized that rational, objective intelligence reports were vital to good decision-making.”
Bush’s personality has always scared me, and I think it’s a big part of the reason why liberals generally hate him more than other former republican President, and also why some conservatives love him so much.
He has that personality type of the deeply religious bordering on fanaticism, that absolute and total surety in his worldview. If the world disagrees, then it’s the world that is at fault, never his views. Bush totally lacks the capability to adapt.
His personality has affected every facet of his administration. The way he wishes to subjugate science to religion, the way he keeps around the people that only say what he wants to hear, the stubborness of insisting on the same strategies in Iraq again and again, the total disdain for anyone who disagrees with his views, it’s all the same problem, deep down.
We will just have to agree to disagree, Mike. Personally, if Fallwell had indeed said sometrhing like “Well, with all these liberals and homosexuals who have as much access to the media as moral Christian folks, how could the World Trade Center crashes not have happened?” I would have thought just as poorly of him as I did with what he did say. The difference seems minor to me.
As you dismiss altogether the notion Bouley was trying to be facetious, his remark is now less severe than yours simply because he didn’t joke and you did.
So actually believing something bad is worse than joking about something bad? Wow, we are on very different pages. But to each his own.
Do you reject everything you have to look up in a reference book to know?
Oh please, you’re just using dollar words and ten dollar phrases to make yourself feel more important, because it’s the only way to sooth your overinflated ego when you don’t know jack from šhìŧ.
Get over yourself.
Meh.
If the Administration had said they were letting people go because they weren’t following policy, I’d say the controversy would be smaller. Saying that it was for incompetency was downright stupid (particularly since one of the lawyers got a promotion a month before being let go).
But stupid is as stupid does….
As I applied the description “less severe” to Bouley’s non-jokes in comparison to your jokes, no.
From your “we shouldn’t have to break out a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an encyclopedia” remark, I still don’t know if the answer to my question is a “yes” or “no.”
Posted by: Rene at March 28, 2007 03:05 PM
“Bush’s personality has always scared me, and I think it’s a big part of the reason why liberals generally hate him more than other former republican President, and also why some conservatives love him so much.
He has that personality type of the deeply religious bordering on fanaticism, that absolute and total surety in his worldview. If the world disagrees, then it’s the world that is at fault, never his views. Bush totally lacks the capability to adapt.”
I think bush fans think he is like churchill, who eloquently encouraged his people to continue fighting without compromise against Nazism. But they mistaking a facade, an immitation, for the real thing. People are hungry for leadership.
“Posted by: Bobb Alfred at March 28, 2007 02:41 PM
The fifth is probably being claimed to protect the underlying reasons, which could be viewed very unfavorably by the public. Despite the fact that Bush cannot be re-elected (yet…I won’t cross off that possibility until we see someone else taking the oath), this administration and party are still smarting from the last election…the one Bush wasn’t running in…and the GOP lost control of Congress, largely because of massive negatvie public reaction to the Bush administration. The GOP probably fears a repeat in the next round of elections, and so is shy about revealing what could be used to oust even more GOP elected officials simply for being Republicans.
And those unrerlying causes might in fact reveal some illegal acts. But those would be acts other than the US Attorney replacements. Like most good scandals, the first hints you get about it are usually not the biggest concerns, or even something you’d normally be concerned with. But they encourage you to dig a little deeper, and it’s that underneath stuff that really gets interesting.”
Didn’t watergate brake because people started digging deeper?
Posted by: Micha at March 28, 2007 04:34 PM
I think bush fans think he is like churchill, who eloquently encouraged his people to continue fighting without compromise against Nazism.
Churchill had resolve, but was also willing to adapt and learn from mistakes. The ability to reflect on what has gone before and learn from mistakes is as necessary an ingredient to leadership as the “resolve” so many mistakenly believe Bush to possess.
Is there some context for the Bouley quote which is missing here? Because, honestly, “I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you. Work for Fox News, spinning the truth in to a billion knots and how can your gut not rot?” doesn’t seem that offensive to me. A bit hyperbolic and overly poetic, maybe. Just from these sentences, he’s implying that guilt from Snow’s actions is consuming him – which, if meant literally, is kind of silly, but doesn’t at all strike me as “gloating”. Especially if he goes on to say that this is an awful thought to have. (If anything, he’s complimenting Snow’s conscience.)
Now, I’ve never heard of this Bouley, so maybe he’s got some gloating-over-conservatives’-illness history of which I’m unaware. But, from what’s been presented here, honestly, between the two quotes – even with an appreciation for dark humor – “There’s no harm in laughing. She won’t hear it, for several reasons” struck me as being more in poor taste.
It is clear that Mike is baffled by things many of us feel are not that baffleable, and many of us are baffled by his bafflement over such unbaffling things, as well as by his baffling paradigms and even more baffling model of reality. So he baffles us and we baffle him, which lead to baffling state of mutual bafflement that makes communication bafflingly difficult. Since all attempts to unbaffle Mike’s bafflement were rather bafflingly unsuccessful, and since Mike is unable to unbaffle our bafflement, we must, as baffling as it may be, accept this baffling situation and move on.
Posted by: Luke K. Walsh at March 28, 2007 04:42 PM
Is there some context for the Bouley quote which is missing here? Because, honestly, “I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you. Work for Fox News, spinning the truth in to a billion knots and how can your gut not rot?” doesn’t seem that offensive to me.
It does to me. Boule is implying that Snow’s cancer is poetic justice. I think that’s disgusting.
Posted by: Luke K. Walsh at March 28, 2007 04:42 PM
“There’s no harm in laughing. She won’t hear it, for several reasons” struck me as being more in poor taste.
Why? It’s dark humor, to be sure, but it doesn’t imply that the woman somehow deserved it. It’s just a darkly humorous observation about one of life’s cruel ironies.
And therein lies the difference. Boule implied that Snow brought his cancer on himself because his politics are “wrong.” Bill Mulligan merely made a joke — ableit a dark joke — about an ironic death without in any way implying that the victim was in any way deserving of such a tragedy.
Posted by: Micha at March 28, 2007 04:43 PM
…we must, as baffling as it may be, accept this baffling situation and move on.
Mike isn’t baffling at all, Micha. He’s driven by deep insecurities that manifest themselves in his desperate attempts to prove himself right all the time, and hampered by an intellect that is less than he believes it to be. His responses have become formulaic and predictable.
It’s rather sad, really. He rants about having our number when in reality we’ve gotten under his skin. Look at how he latched onto me, and later, Bill Mulligan. He needs us in a way we don’t need him.
Sad. Creepy, too. But mainly sad.
Well, if you’re going to keep ambusing me, why should I stop responding that you aren’t replying to anything I’ve said in particular?
“Is there some context for the Bouley quote which is missing here? Because, honestly, “I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you. Work for Fox News, spinning the truth in to a billion knots and how can your gut not rot?” doesn’t seem that offensive to me.
It does to me. Boule is implying that Snow’s cancer is poetic justice. I think that’s disgusting.”
I haven’t read it in context, but it doesn’t come across that way to me. “Poetic justice” implies that he had it coming. I’m seeing the comment as more along the lines of commenting on a painful irony. The notion that the requirements of his job literally ate away at him. But I acknowledge that’s purely a subjective reading of it.
PAD
I don’t get the “poetic justice” leap from that quote, myself – at least from what’s presented here, it’s “Snow physically consumed by guilt,” with no pleasure taken by Bouley at the thought. I’ve completely disagreed with just about everything Mike’s ever posted about Bill Mulligan here. But, just as it’s been pointed out elsewhere in this thread that the more liberal posters here will criticize liberals if warranted rather than just cling blindly to their loyalties, I have to say that out of the two quotes in question, the one I found more distasteful was the one laughing at a dead disabled woman.
And I know that Bill didn’t mean any harm by it, and in fact was trying to commiserate with PAD. But Bill did put the question to “the gentle readers of this blog”; and I do have to say that, this one time, I see Mike’s point.
Luke– I’ll willingly cop to being in poor taste. Truth to tell, I don’t think I have what most would consider good taste, except in my choice of spouse. I take comfort in Picasso’s statement “Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.” That’s a great comfort to me when I look at my DVD collection.
Of course, that’s just crass justification on my part but a man’s got to know his limitations…
Here’s a more complete version of the Bouley quote:
I hear about Tony Snow and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and well, how could a cancer NOT grow in you. Work for Fox News, spinning the truth in to a billion knots and how can your gut not rot? I know, it’s terrible. I admit it. I don’t wish anyone harm, even Tony Snow. And I do hope he recovers or at least does what he feels is best and surrounds himself with friends and family for his journey. But in the back of my head there’s Justin Timberlake’s “What goes around, goes around, comes around, comes all the way back around, ya..”
Including the last sentence provides much more support for the “poetic justice” reading. Now, here’s his followup:
Just as stress can lead to strokes and heart attacks, high blood pressure, I believe if you surround yourself with vitriolic and terribly negative people like Cheney, Bush, Rove and the lot, it’s bound to have a physical effect. Does he DESERVE cancer, no, no one does. But when you are in such a horrifying atmosphere the physical is bound to pay somehow.
…which takes the moral dimension out of it (or reduces it, anyway), but still seems to me to suggest direct cause and effect rather than just irony. (As to what he meant to say the first time, I don’t know; since the second post was in response to criticism of the first, he could have been backpedalling or just clarifying.)
I realize it’s going to seem like I’m playing the 20/20 hindsight game, but… I’m not surprised that the complete Bouley quote supports my assertion that his implication was “poetic justice.” Perhaps I’m being just as subjective as you, PAD… but the excerpt Bill Mulligan provided seemed pretty clear to me: that Bouley believed Tony Snow was paying the price for picking the “wrong” political side.
And I have to stand by Bill Mulligan on this one… even if he himself will not. Laughing at the irony of someone’s death is a far cry from, y’know, implying that someone brought cancer on themselves because they picked the “wrong side” in the political world.
Mike’s “point” comes from a place of hatred. Even if he’s right (and in this case I don’t believe he is), it’s for the wrong reasons.
Anyway, bottom line… I see a categorical difference between chuckling about the cruel irony inherent in the manner in which someone died, and gloating about The former may be darkly humorous and difficult for some to stomach, but the latter is just cruel.
I have ceased reading Mike’s posts, but I suspect he will soon parrot his “Bill Myers is paying a price for his fidelity to others’ roles in their environments.” Which is funny, because I’ve disagreed with Bill Mulligan and the evidence is right in the archives of PAD’s blog. Our friendship is strong enough that we each expect honesty from one another. That’s why Mr. Mulligan knows — or at least he should know — that when I defend him it comes not from knee-jerk loyalty but from a place of honesty.
Ahem… the second-to-last paragraph of my prior post should read:
“Anyway, bottom line… I see a categorical difference between chuckling about the cruel irony inherent in the manner in which someone died, and gloating about the misfortune of someone who has chosen the “wrong” political side. The former may be darkly humorous and difficult for some to stomach, but the latter is just cruel because it implies some fault on the part of the afflicted.”
Bouley made an evil observation he does not stand by formally — wishing no one harm on the onset — and aired his inner conflict publicly.
As people aren’t robots, sheltering or waiving evil is something we all choose to do. Denying this kind of inner struggle takes place, or should take place, doesn’t seem worthy of the 21st century.
“”Snow physically consumed by guilt,”
I don’t know anything about this. But it seems to me that if somebody who was close to Snow, and knew he was eaten with guilt, said something like that, than it would be tragic. But when a political opponent says that, he seems to imply that the cancer is a form of punishment, a visible sign of the gulit he should have felt. It feels wrong to me. I understand how somebody would have a passing thought like that, and how they would feel it was terrible afterwards. But then, why write it down?
Bill Mulligan made a dark joke in a thread about dark jokes. Not everybody gets dark jokes. They are not always funny. Part of their point is that they are inappropriate. But they are not malicious. The joke usually has more to do with making fun of the attitude of the person telling the joke and his audience than about the subject of the joke. They serve a psychological purpose.
Comments appreciated, Bill.
I’m a bit surprised that nobody has so far found an equivilant bit of nastiness from someone who was anti-Edwards(implying that Ms. Edwards illness was “payback” for Edwards successful lawsuits against doctors or some such rot). I’d be amazed if they didn’t exist; the blogosphere is a big place and lots of creepy people have made their home in the various moist corners.
Just as stress can lead to strokes and heart attacks, high blood pressure, I believe if you surround yourself with vitriolic and terribly negative people like Cheney, Bush, Rove and the lot, it’s bound to have a physical effect. Does he DESERVE cancer, no, no one does. But when you are in such a horrifying atmosphere the physical is bound to pay somehow.
Ignoring the politics for the moment, what a bunch of claptrap this is. The guy got cancer several years ago, before taking this job. It’s the same cancer that killed his mom. But Bouley must not buy into all that western medicine clap trap. What next–a voodoo curse from the ghosts of New Orleans?
Okay, with the additional couple of lines there (“even Tony Snow” isn’t great), I can more easily understand why Bill was so offended by the Bouley statement. Bouley may just be saying that the song was part of the “terrible” thought in his head, a manifestation of the “what goes around comes around” idea (in which case, he would’ve at least been better off with “Instant Karma”); but it could also be seen as a bit of a “nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah” (contradicting what he claims earlier in his statement). Personally, I’m still not certain that he was ever gloating; but it is just as likely that his second statement is damage control as it is an honest attepmt at clarification.
And I’m glad that I didn’t offend you, Bill Mulligan. (Certainly I’m in no position to judge your taste, and I like to think that I appreciate me some dark humor, though “The Royal Tennebaums” is all that comes to mind at the moment – well, “Pulp Fiction” has some black moments, too…) I only popped in my opinion as I hadn’t really seen that POV represented yet. In hindsight, I question whether I may’ve been a little more sensitive to your joke than another might’ve been. My mother spent the last twenty years (and odd months) of her life in a wheelchair – which is a quite different disability than deafness, and I don’t THINK it’s made me more sensitive to any jokes about _any_ disabled people. But, since I can’t be certain, I thought I should in fairness mention it. So, your joke may’ve been even less offensive to the ordinary person than I (and I wasn’t even offended so much as “Eww – that’s not right”); and if we tailored our jokes to avoid offending _anyone_ … we wouldn’t have any jokes.
You’ve started to form the answer to your own question:
Bouley’s comments serve a psychological purpose no less than you cite.
One person may have to talk his way through his feelings, while a person of a different temperament doesn’t, but has to talk his way through the planets of the solar system, the sequence of vowels after the letter c, or them bones, them bones, them dry bones.
If you agree with Bouley — that thinking Tony Snow deserves cancer is nasty — but get mad at him for needing to talk his way through the same conclusion you formed unconsciously: this is an example how erecting taboos is a form of oppress between people of differing temperaments.
At least where he’s wrong, he’s put his views in the form of questions, and we have access to influnce them. That isn’t true of views presented arbitrarily because we have no access to their formation.
It seems counter-intuitive to think what aggravates cancer won’t aggravate its relapse.
No harm, no foul, Luke.
As far as good dark humor movies–Shaun of the Dead, Dr. Strangelove (watch it after watching Fail Safe for greater comedy effect), Raising Arizona, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Barton Fink, Heathers, Harold and Maude, Dead/Alive, Grosse Pointe Blank, The Whole 9 Yards (But not the sequel!), Fargo, May, After Hours, The Last Supper, Penn & Teller get Killed, Election, Bubba Ho-Tep, Prizzi’s Honor, Repo-Man, Eating Raoul…ok, that should keep your weekend busy.
EDITORS NOTE: I am in no way endorsing the events of the aforementioned films and apologize to any one who may be personally offended by cannibalism, nuclear holocaust, child kidnapping, killing old people, killing women, killing teenagers, euthanasia, suicide, matricide, mob hits, woodchippers, killing lesbians, mummies killing old people, etc. If anyone has experienced or had a relative experience any of these, I apologize. If you have experienced ALL of them you have had an interesting life.
Posted by: Luke K.Walsh at March 28, 2007 08:21 PM
In hindsight, I question whether I may’ve been a little more sensitive to your joke than another might’ve been. My mother spent the last twenty years (and odd months) of her life in a wheelchair…
If you’re a bit over-sensitive to jokes about the handicapped, it’s probably because you loved your mother. And that’s not a bad thing.
It is clear that Mike is baffled by things many of us feel are not that baffleable, and many of us are baffled by his bafflement over such unbaffling things, as well as by his baffling paradigms and even more baffling model of reality. So he baffles us and we baffle him, which lead to baffling state of mutual bafflement that makes communication bafflingly difficult. Since all attempts to unbaffle Mike’s bafflement were rather bafflingly unsuccessful, and since Mike is unable to unbaffle our bafflement, we must, as baffling as it may be, accept this baffling situation and move on.
I simply place a baffle between his baffling bafflement and my eyes. It’s so much easier that way… 🙂
Bill, Bill, Jerry, Den, Craig, Micha,
Thanks to one and all for the kind wishes. February was definitely a rough month (and the fact that my mom went into surgery on my birthday was something less than icing on the cake). Things went about as well as they could possibly have gone on the surgery end, though — the surgeon was actually SMILING when we spoke to him that afternoon, which up until then was something I considered about as likely as Bush tearing off a mask to reveal that he was really James Randi.
Surgeons tend to be what they are. I’d cut them some slack if only for the dehumanizing experience they go through to get there, which is even worse than what most doctors have to endure.
In general, yes. If he was just gruff, I think we’d have all been fine with it. The fact that he responded to my mom’s question of “if this the procedure you would use on yourself?” by taking great offense and saying that especially given my mom’s profession (a therapist) she should beware of double standards, however… that left us all pretty sour. (A colleague of mine took great offense on her behalf when I told him about it, since he’d also had treatment at the same hospital earlier and had tons of people tell him that that exact question is what every single patient OUGHT to ask.)
Could I have been any more redundant?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt of a speculation of the faintest inkling.
Rene: thank you. That expresses my opinion of Bush’s personality (or at least his persona) pretty much to the letter.
TWL
It seems counter-intuitive to think what aggravates cancer won’t aggravate its relapse.
If someone suggests that John Edwards may be partly responsible for his wife’s cancer due to him creating the undeniably stressful situation of a presidential campaign I’m going to find it at least equally offensive and highly dubious to boot. Even if one believes that to be true–well, as the old saying goes “A truth that’s told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.”
As far as good dark humor movies–
[list deleted for brevity]
I think we must have similar tastes, though you’ve clearly had more opportunity over the last decade-plus to exercise said tastes. I’d completely agree with those films on your list that I’ve seen , but that’s depressingly few: Dr. Strangelove [which we own and is one of the best dark comedies in film history], Heathers, Grosse Pointe Blank [which always seemed perfect since the lead character was right around our HS grad year as well], After Hours, and Repo Man.
I keep thinking I should be able to add others to your list, but I’m coming up empty at the moment.
I could almost, ALMOST put “Night of the Comet” in there, but that’s only half dark; the other half is in the so-stupid-it’s-fun-in-the-right-mood category. On the other hand, any film that features the line, “I’m not crazy! I just don’t give a f**k!” can’t be all bad … and it’s got zombies, which means you probably knew all this anyway.
TWL
That’s, like, Asperger’s in a nutshell, is it not?
Unless you are presuming that Elizabeth Edwards’s role as a wife is one of service to John Edwards, Bouley’s citation of stress issues for Tony Snow — “if you surround yourself with vitriolic and terribly negative people like Cheney, Bush, Rove and the lot, it’s bound to have a physical effect…. when you are in such a horrifying atmosphere the physical is bound to pay somehow” — simply does not apply to her.
In one of his March 27 “There’s All Types Of Cancers Growing” blog entry comments section, to clarify his entry, Charles Karel Bouley wrote: “Just as stress can lead to strokes and heart attacks, high blood pressure, I believe if you surround yourself with vitriolic and terribly negative people like Cheney, Bush, Rove and the lot, it’s bound to have a physical effect. Does he DESERVE cancer, no, no one does. But when you are in such a horrifying atmosphere the physical is bound to pay somehow.”
OK. Let’s see… The far left folks have stated this presidential administration is the worst ever; that it’s as evil and as fascist as Hitler and his National Socialist Party; and now, this administration is said to be so corrupt and toxic, it also causes cancer.
You know, it’s hard to take seriously any criticism when it is so wrapped such blind hatred and wild hyperbole.
Frankly, I think all the left wing nuts and right wing nuts deserve each other. They are two peas in the exact same pod.
I could almost, ALMOST put “Night of the Comet” in there, but that’s only half dark; the other half is in the so-stupid-it’s-fun-in-the-right-mood category. On the other hand, any film that features the line, “I’m not crazy! I just don’t give a f**k!” can’t be all bad … and it’s got zombies, which means you probably knew all this anyway.
Oh yeah, and don’t forget BIG HONKING 80s HAIR!
And Mary Woronov. Voota!
Unless you are presuming that Elizabeth Edwards’s role as a wife is one of service to John Edwards
Elizabeth Edwards is quite possibly the single most vital element in John Edward’s success thus far. If you wish to characterize that as mere “service her husband” well, ok. In my opinion anyone who is doing as much as she is for her partner’s run for the presidency is being put under a level of stress that most of us can only imagine. What do you think?
Are you seriously arguing that she hasn’t been under stress? Or that the only way she would be under stress is if here role is one of “service” to her husband (whatever you mean by that)? Not that this is germane to the larger point since I think that her cancer (and Snow’s for that matter) would have in all likelihood reoccurred even if they had both been spending the last few years relaxing on a beach doing flower arrangement or some other suitably stress free environment. As they have both undergone chemo in the past it is quite likely that it was the treatment that caused the “new” cancer. When you are forced to treat cancer with carcinogens that’s an outcome that has pretty high odds.
But then again, I’m looking at this from a westernized bias which sees cancer as a disease of abnormal cell growth and function and not an opportunity for scoring cheap political points.
During the 2004 democratic primaries, I don’t specifically remember if former Marine and PBS NewsHour commentator Mark Shields used the words “electrifying” or “dynamite” to describe John Edwards campaigning to close the gap between the 2 Americas, but if you ask him I don’t doubt he would agree with you those words applied to him.
As Elizabeth Edwards’s role offered no buffer between the public and her husband prior to her announcing her cancer after John Kerry lost, I don’t think you’ve heard anything by John Edwards that hasn’t been reframed through a biased viewpoint.
I don’t doubt Elizabeth Edwards has been under stress. Stress can mean many things, like the positive stress of excitement and laughter.
But Bouley cited stress under conditions different than anyone else outside of the current white house. Your comparison does not apply.
Have the Chinese presented political evil eye as a source of cancer in some manner I haven’t been made aware of?
I remember John Lennon asying that the disadvantage of fame is that you are forced to spend time with people you don’t want to spend time with.
I think “Is John Edwards’s campaign pressuring his wife to spend time with people she doesn’t want to spend time with?” is a perfectly valid question for any candidate’s spouse, no less so for Elizabeth Edwards and her condition.
Of course, the challenge is to frame the question to not apply to voters as the people whose company is in question, so someone will have to risk insulting voters to ask.