Let He Who Is Most Familiar With Sin Cast The First Stone

ABC News posts a helpful and entertaining guide to politicians who condemned Bill Clinton for his extra-marital activities while shrugging off their own. Mark Sanford makes the list, as does John Edwards and the usual suspects. My favorite quote: In his 2007 memoirs, DeLay, R-Texas, revealed a secret: he had had an extramarital affair that pre-dated Clinton's impeachment. He saw no hypocrisy, however. "I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There's a big difference."

No Speech! No Speech!

I didn't watch Sara Palin's speech last night. In fact, I haven't watched more than five minutes of the whole Republican convention, and I certainly am not going to waste time on McCain's speech tonight. Yes, I must hate all Republicans.

Then again, I watched even less of the Democratic Convention last week, so I must hate them too. Or perhaps it's this: I don't like to watch politicians making speeches.

This aversion developed in the mid-nineties when I watched one of Clinton's State of the Union addresses. I couldn't get through it without thinking, "you're not addressing the question! You're glossing over the subject!" And I liked Clinton. Once Bush took office, of course it was even worse: all the evasion and trickery, accompanied by a lack of ability to actually speak in public.

A character in Lawrence of Arabia tells Omar Sharif: "You answered without saying anything. That's politics." That's also convention speeches, only without the question first.

So given that you won't get any actual information from these spectacles, you're left with judging politicians by their charisma. Or in other words, you can try to determine whether the rubes will vote for this person because they don't know any better. I'm tired of playing that game. The rubes will vote for who they like. I'm trying to determine who I will vote for. I'd suggest you do the same.

Devil Went Down To Provo

It's unfair to base your opinions of an entire political party on the crazy statements of a couple of fringe elements. In fact, it's hilariously unfair. Quoting the Salt Lake Tribune:

Utah County GOP Chairwoman Marian Monnahan says District 65 Chairman Don Larsen's resolution - asserting that illegal immigration is the devil's plan to destroy the nation by "stealth invasion" - "in no way" is endorsed by the Republican Party.

As Larsen helpfully points out in his resolution, “In order for Satan to establish his ‘New World Order’ and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S.” Larsen thinks it is important to get this language into the public books, perhaps because we will be able to touch Satan's forehead with them and make him dissolve into a shower of sparks and dust.

The KUTV coverage of this story provided both a drawing of the devil (he resembles Cesar Romero) and a link to this story. Last year a Republican Congressional candidate in Salt Lake City named John Jacob blamed the Devil for his difficult campaign.

Jacob says that since he decided to run for Congress, Satan has disrupted his business deals, preventing him from putting as much money into the race as he had hoped.

Yep, that's right - the devil is responsible for keeping rich people out of politics. You know what that means: Satan is on Obama's side! By the way, the devil featured in this article looks more like Montel Williams, only green against a red gradient background. Curious choice, as if the devil hasn't yet been dropped into boiling water, but he'll be delicious afterward.

So as a fair-minded liberal blogger, the power of Christ compels me to point out that the majority of Republican candidates almost never blame their failures of Satan. Publicly. Like any good football team they will cite Jesus when they win something, but so will lots of Democrats. I just don't want you to go around thinking that Republicans are prone to blame everything that goes wrong on some otherworldly scapegoat.

They usually use Clinton for that.

Another Delicious Retraction

This one is even better than Gingrich's weirdo explanation for his "language of the ghetto" remarks recently. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was on Meet The Press Sunday and speaking about the totally reasonable dismissal of US Attorney Carol Lam. He pointed out:

"She was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton"

These are not the reasons anyone is giving for her dismissal, by the way. However, Hatch's statements raised some red flags because a little easy research reveals she was never a campaign manger for Clinton, because at the time of the campaigns she was an Assistant US Attorney, and thus to participate in any campaign would have violated the Hatch Act. She never was a law professor and she has, actually, been a federal prosecutor for 18 years. So was this part of a disinformation campaign to distract us all from the political nature of these firings?

No no, of course not. According to a letter to MTP Hatch wasn't talking about Carol Lam, fired US Attorney, at all. No, he was talking about Alan Bersin, her predecessor. Bersin had been appointed by Clinton and was presumably fired when Bush came into office. As Rachel Maddow points out:

Given the massive media attention and debate about "Alan Bersin" recently, I can understand his mistake.

News of the correction should rip through the right wing blogosphere like wildfire. I bet Drudge has a spinning siren over item right now! But maybe this is the solution to the whole problem... it's all a big misunderstanding! Gonzalez, had he been involved at all with the decision, thought that he was firing THE PREVIOUS OFFICE HOLDERS. It happens. So let's just let bygones be bygones, shall we?

Once we re-impeach Clinton, if you know what I mean.

The Left Sucks Too

As a political blogger, I consider it my mission to trash the other side. But even I get bored of it after a while, and it's not like the left is a bunch 'o saints either. In fact, you know, basically my philosophy is this -- if they've gotten to the point that they're well-known enough to be electable, it's already too late. Big money has gotten them. And if a pundit is identified with the left or the right, they're lying about their true opinions about half the time, because staying on one side is good for talent bookers.

I have no such constraints, because there's no money in this. I'm not saying I can't be corrupted -- It's just that to date no one has bothered. So while I can still afford it, here's a list of things that tick me off about my own side of the spectrum.

1. John Kerry. Humorless, inauthentic, looks like Herman Munster. I suppose it's not surprising that he was elected to the senate, and once there incumbency has taken care of him, but I can't imagine a less appealing candidate for anything, anywhere.
2. The War Vote. This may be my biggest beef with the whole party. Iraq? And you really all BELIEVED that nonsense? It seemed pretty obvious to ME at the time that Iraq had nothing to do 9/11, nor had they attacked us. Y'all voted for it because you were afraid that we'd dislike you. Well, that's why we all like Obama now. Triangulation is the dark side of open-mindedness.
3. "Poor people are poor because nuclear power plants are polluting the atmosphere!" Not a real quote, but a National Lampoon satire of Jane Fonda from the late seventies. There are good practical reasons to regulate business, help the poor and protect the environment, but much of the left pursues these things because of the warm fuzzies they get out of it. This quote is dangerously close to countless things I've read from various actors over the years. We have too many spokespeople, and a lot of them are just stupid. BTW, if anyone can confirm or deny that P. J. O'Roarke wrote this, I'd be grateful.
4. Lecturing. We can be pretty insufferable some times. The right does it too, but I'm not writing about them now. Now sit down and don't interrupt.
5. The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations. Nobody can make the homeless feel even MORE disenfranchised then us. The left is always more willing to give a man a fish than to teach him how to fish. Not everybody can reel in the big one, but more people can than we think. There is a tremendous hubris among lefties, and we often believe that only we can save the world/the poor/the environment. We are mistaken. Except about the environment.
6. The DNC. The Democratic National Committee has been leading us into the wilderness since the early 90's. The DNC made Ralph Nader look viable. The DNC turned Al Gore into a wooden cypher. The DNC said, "Howard Dean? Who could like him! Let's run Kerry instead." The DNC is an ocean that Karl Rove has been catching the big waves on for too long.
7. Air America. It's great that there is such a thing... it's just bad radio. How difficult can it be to find left-leaning entertainers?

Hillary Clinton gets honorable mention (see 2, 4 and 5) as do any Fox News regulars - if you were good at articulating the position, they'd throw you off the guest list pal. And the list is by no means complete. The complete list, though, is about a tenth of the size of my list of things about the right that tick me off.

Bad Omen For Gonzalez

You know this recent rash of state attorney firings, and how they're saying it's no big deal because Clinton did it too? I haven't seen that one picked up by PUBLIUS, MADELINE'S DAD or even NO LEFT TURNS. Even among the coalition of the willing, this one may not fly.

Scooter Libby Verdict - Maybe It's Just Me

As you know, I get all my right-wing talking points from the blogs that quote them. This allows the craziness to distill, and it comes to me without any of the leavening mendacity that a true expert provides. For example, the other day I read that the lack of bad news coming out of Iraq PROVES that the surge is working. "It may be working, but a lack of evidence is the opposite of proof," I countered. "No no, this is absolute proof!" my talking-point-quoting friends screamed. I'm guessing, based on the tone, that it originated with Hannity.

But the far more interesting adventure in logic this week has been the assertion that it's a travesty of justice that I. "Scooter" Libby has been convicted of lying to a Grand Jury. I suppose that point is arguable, but when you point out that Clinton got the same treatment they insist this is NOTHING like THAT.

"Lying to a grand jury about a crime is indeed a crime. A very serious one at that. But as MadelinesDad pointed out- there was never a crime to lie about." See, in right-wing world Valerie Plame wasn't even WITH the CIA, or she was the CIA spokesperson. She had a big CIA hat and everyone in town knew she was an agent. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was covering up his Monica Lewinsky indiscretion because it would directly prove he had raped a half-dozen women in Arkansas.

"Fitzgerald was on a fishing expedition! He already had a leaker with Richard Armitage." I pointed out that it was possible for more than one government official to leak the same information, but this got me nowhere rhetorically. After all, Armitage is a traitor who has subsequently disagreed with the President about the war. And he probably drinks and beats his children. Get on that one, Drudge.

So the way I see it Libby obstructs investigation about national security breach at least equals Clinton obstructs investigation about blow job. What am I missing? How can these people twist logic so far to accomodate their talking points? Doesn't it hurt after a while?

Bush Derangement Syndrome Eats Its Own Tail

I conducted an experiment on conservatives today.

I ran across the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome" in a post on Where Are My Keys. The term was coined by Charles Krauthammer in 2003 to define conspiracy theorists who blame everything bad on the President. 9/11 was Bush's plan, Bush is personally causing global warming, Bush wanted New Orleans to sink because he hates black people. Fair enough in that context.

The context I saw it in today was discussing the Dixie Chicks and their Grammy: " They gave those awards to them for one reason and one reason only. BDS." I have seen this phrase evolving elsewhere too: If you believe that mankind causes global warming, or that there IS global warming, you suffer from BDS. If you think that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, you suffer from BDS. If you voted for democrats in the 2006 elections, it wasn't because you were for Democrats, you simply were expressing BDS. In other words, disagreement of any kind with the President is the product of derangement. There can be no other cause.

Which means, when you think about it, that America is currently two-thirds deranged.

I will admit that the blogs that make these arguments are the fringy ones. Michelle Malkin, for example, and a host of less famous extremists. So I invited commenters to explain to me... well, here's what I said.

My New Favorite Buzzword
Okay, I'm curious - What is the opposite of Bush Derangement Syndrome? What does someone who is not suffering from it believe?

The host generously broke it out into another topic. And for a change, I finally got what I wanted! Though he simplified the question to "what is the opposite of BDS called?", just look at the answers!

CAD: Clinton Adulation Disorder.
CSI, Cranial Sand Introduction
TAS, Terrorist Apologist Society
NFBL, Negotiate First, Blame Later
FLOW, Flip-flopping Liberals, Oops! War!

This is delicious... none of these jokes is an opposite! They are just DIFFERENT insults hurled at liberals. You either hate Bush, or you love terrorists. You're either deranged, or your head is full of sand. Strictly speaking, for example, the opposite would have been Clinton Derangement Disorder, or Terrorist Hatred Society.

A whole day to come up with these things and no one volunteered a kind word for the Big Fellah. None of them can bring themselves to say the opposite of Bush Derangement Syndrome is AGREEING WITH BUSH. They negate their own political spectrum! Obviously, this is a form of derangement.

It is a generally agreed-on opinion that the more you are like most folks, the better adjusted you are psychologically. In right wing world this position is reversed, like all other logic. Look at the attempt above to blame the war on flip-flopping liberals. For that matter, our President is the war hero -- people who actually FOUGHT in a war are cowards. Barack Obama would be FOR slavery! Freedom of speech is unAmerican. So for them, there is no disconnect between their distaste for the president being reasonable because they're keeping it to themselves; but for anyone to speak of it out loud is obviously insane. Or that crazy conspiracy theories about Clinton are probably true, but disliking Bush is grounds for stoning.

One last thing - maybe I'm putting too much thought into what is obviously just a buzzword. I shouldn't fall into that kind of escalation. Sorry, I meant surge.

A Dead Horse Named Bill Clinton

Scalia, answering questions after a speech, also said that critics of the 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore need to move on six years after the electoral drama of December 2000, when it seemed the whole nation hung by a chad awaiting the outcome of the presidential election. "It's water over the deck — get over it," Scalia said, drawing laughs from his audience.
-Mark Sherman, Associated Press

Yeah, here's the thing about that. "Water under the bridge" is the normal phrase. "Water over the deck" indicates that the ship is sinking and the wrong guy is captain.

I'm in a quandary here because I keep thinking about something I've heard from a couple of Republicans during the troop surge debate. Escalation? Augmentation? Anyway, more than once some have said that to even debate this only emboldens our enemies.

So publicly disagreeing with the president is aiding and abetting the enemy.

So why haven't all those senators who criticized Clinton when he sent troops into Kosovo turned themselves in? Why isn't Tom DeLay in Gitmo right now? I'm limiting my scope here to wartime behavior. Although, as has often been pointed out, Clinton didn't do enough to stop Bin Laden; isn't is possible that he was distracted during the six-year unprecedented criminal investigation which yielded no actual charges other than lying to the grand jury about an unrelated personal matter? Could THAT have taken his eye off the ball a little?

I'm just saying. And the other day, at WHERE ARE MY KEYS, I was in a comment section debate about this. Madeline's Dad said,

When the 9/11 Commission did their investigation, and the resulting report, all we kept hearing about was how the Clinton guys gave all this info to the Bush guys, describing what a threat Bin Laden, et al were/are. If that's the case, that al-Q was the biggest thing out there, why didn't the American people know anything about them?

This from the side that routinely calls the New York Times a branch of Al-Jazeera for reporting UN-classified information. I think I had a stroke when I read that. I brought up the fact that Bush wasn't exactly giving daily Bin Laden briefings before 9/11 either. He eventually said he gives both sides a pass for what they did BEFORE 9/11. I believe he is worried that as we speak, congress is housing an Al-Quaeda office in that basement conference room they had to meet in a couple of years ago. If there is another attack on American soil, it will be because the Republicans are no longer running all the branches of government.

The way I see it, the biggest assault on our nation occurred under exactly that scenario, but MD and the other Bush apologists cannot admit that. It's the elephant in the room, if you will.

State Of The Union - Whatever, Listen To This

I didn't listen to the State of the Union address last night. I hate 'em. I hated Clinton's SOTUs too. In the vast Kabuki which is politics, the SOTU is like some play within a play, a guy miming a puppet show. It's a mighty waste of time and effort, and everyone knows it.

I believe that the original intent of the speech was for the President to report on the State of the Union. This is ridiculous on its face. The President has no more information than congress or the Senate does, and if he does he's going to keep it to himself. Therefore, the exercise has mutated into a policy statement, in which the President pretends to ask congress for things he pretends to want, and Congress pretends to listen. It's a pageant, made even more unnecessary by the refusal of everyone to wear top hats.

The President says something like, I call on Congress to tax oil companies! Congress applauds. The next day they pretend it never happened. We, the American public, turn off the TV and say, "wow, I didn't know the president wanted to tax oil companies! He's not so bad after all." And then we forget it ever happened. Or if we don't forget, the President can say he called for it but he doesn't make the laws. Congress can say they're working on it. The oil companies wire another sum to a series of offshore accounts. Everybody wins.

The SOTU is, and has been for its history, an infomercial. There is, possibly, a slight chance that the president would ask for something he really wants, and be so convincing that Congress would listen to the American People and give it to us. You see that happening? Me either. So it's an infomercial which everybody knows is meaningless before it starts. No wonder McCain nodded off. The amazing thing is that everyone else doesn't.

I'm pushing for next year's SOTU to be a memo.

TownHall Blogger Equates Disagreement with Censorship

I just came from Townhall.com, where a conservative blogger (wish I knew his name, but he identifies himself as "Madeline's Dad") showed examples of "censorship" from the left. He cites as examples several defaced political signs, a vocal reaction to a Minuteman speech, and YouTube making people register to see an anti-Clinton video because it was flagged "inappropriate."
It creeps me out when the right tries to clamp down on speech that disagrees with them, if for no other reason than if I've got a huge paper trail of disagreeing with the right, therefore could potentially be defined as an "enemy combatant." Sure no one reads any of this crap, but there are search engines.
By the way, he just wrote another post suggesting that the coverage of the Mark Foley sex scandal being massive compared to the Harry Reid real estate scandal, is proof of media bias. Yeah, he's got a point there. I remember how all those Whitewater stories crowded Monica Lewinsky right off the front page!

Republicans Are Impotent, Bill Clinton Not So Much

This is the conclusion that I reach when I reach as I hear John McCain picking up the sad l'il meme that a current disaster is the fault of Bill Clinton: This time it's the North Korean nuclear test.
Bill Clinton wrecked the economy, Bill Clinton let Osama Bin Laden escape, Bill Clinton failed to pass tough pretzel-baking laws which would have prevented the Bush pretzel-choking incident. Republicans are like Biff in BACK TO THE FUTURE, blaming George McFly for not warning him about the blind spot in the car he loaned him, causing him to crash McFly's car and spill beer all over his leisure suit.
What kind of man has six years of unprecedented power, unopposed by the other branches of government, even refusing to obey the laws he himself signs, and yet cannot take responsibility for a single thing that goes wrong on his watch? A man who cannot accomplish anything. I cannot believe that George Bush has stopped drinking, because all he needs to do is have Bill Frist say "he didn't want to drink, but his friends came over." And Michelle Malkin will blame Bill Clinton for not bringing back prohibition.
I'm just kidding. Bill Clinton is the culprit for everything that's bad. The current administration is doing a heckuva job.

Drudge Says to Leave Poor Mark Foley Alone

I'll explain myself further down, but if you carry Matt Drudge's remarks on his radio show to a logical conclusion, then Monica Lewinsky is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and should pay millions of dollars in legal fees.
Drudge twisted himself into a veritable pretzel of rationalization this weekend to protect Mark Foley, the Republican congressman who resigned when his creepy email exchanges with teenage male pages went public. Some commentators insist the emails were just misinterpreted; some suggest that they are being released now as an unfair election-year scandal attempt, but only Drudge deflects the blame to where it belongs.

You could say "well Drudge, it's abuse of power, a congressman abusing these impressionable, young 17 year-old beasts, talking about their sex lives with a grown man, on the Internet." Because you have to remember, those of us who have seen some of the transcripts of these nasty instant messages. This was two ways, ladies and gentlemen. These kids were playing Foley for everything he was worth. Oh yeah. Oh, I haven't…they were talking about how many times they'd masturbated, how many times they'd done it with their girlfriends this weekend…all these things and these "innocent children."

Yes, that's right. It's the pages' fault. These tempting, saucy young boys took advantage of the weakness of innocent Mark Foley and seduced him, probably in an attempt to get X-Boxes.
So good news for the left! Bill Clinton is off the hook for the 9/11 attacks! If, as the recent PATH TO 9/11 movie suggested, Mr. C was distracted from the hunt for Osama Bin Laden by the Monica Lewinsky imbroglio, then surely he is not to blame. In fact, he is owed an apology. Monica Lewinsky flew those planes into those buildings. If that makes you uneasy, I'm perfectly happy to put the blame on Linda Tripp instead.
=====================================
Added note: Surprising how sparingly news organizations use Mark Foley's first name in their stories - so that's why I was calling him John, all right? I kept fighting the urge to use Dennis, a character from MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN.

Oprah Is Just All Right With Me

I have been thinking about Oprah Winfrey the last couple of days - there are reports that her lawyers insisted that someone take down the OPRAH '08 website that suggested she run for president, and Oprah called them off.
It occurs to me that for a long time, Oprah has been the most powerful woman in the world. God knows she knows how to sell a book. Perhaps one day Hillary Clinton will be more powerful, but she's so controversial that any real power will be blocked by opponents. Oprah, as far as I can tell, has no opponents. Oprah has absolute power.
Except it doesn't seem to have corrupted her at all. You almost never hear of Oprah abusing anyone. There was that shopping story a few months back (Oprah made us open the shop an hour early and then insulted everyone!) but it was such a aberration that you have to assume it was something the shop did. And Oprah has been on the scene forever. After a while stories get out, especially if you've stepped on people.
Beef farmers complain about Oprah's remarks about beef? Oprah meets with them, makes nice and does a week of shows from Texas. And the remarks were TRUE. Oprah pushes a book from a guy who turns out to have made up most of his life story? Oprah apologizes for pushing the book, then makes him come back on the show and apologize for writing it.
The more I think about it, the more I want to BEG Oprah to run for President -- and I don't even know her party affiliation. Whatever it is, I bet she'd be fair. And the first thing she'd do is make George Allen apologize for the racist talk. Then she'd make John Kerry apologize for being so weaselly. Probably the first two years in office would be forced apologies from the House and Senate, and from then on a golden age.
2008 is still two years away, and Oprah doesn't need to raise money. Let's get this party started!

Got Spine?

I think there is no denying that the Chris Wallace/Bill Clinton dustup on Fox News Sunday this last weekend provided raw material enough to satisfy anybody. Fox News got something it could use - footage of Bill Clinton seemingly out of control with anger. They have been running clips of that crazy moonbat Clinton since before the interview even aired.
We the Democrats got what we wanted, the exact same thing. For my part I have been yearning to see Clinton drop the statesmanlike equanimity and fight back. His failure to do that made his book especially disappointing to me. So to see him inside the belly of the beast, punching at the stomach lining and spitting poison as a terrified Chris Wallace attempted to blend with a studio background as black as Rupert Murdoch's heart, was cathartic as hell. I think the former prez prevented that second heart attack.
I cruised on over to NO LEFT TURNS, a polite and intelligent right-wing blog that I frequent, and there was an opinion expressed that Clinton was faking his anger. I love this. Either way. If he wasn't, he had every right to be angry - the terms of the interview allowed for the first part to be about the charity Clinton was pushing, and the second part was to be about anything Fox wanted. It wasn't only an ambush, it was a needless ambush. I think Wallace did it out of force of habit.
If Clinton was faking his anger, even better - he sucker-punched Fox News!
In either event, it signals the arrival of the angry left. We have permission now to call Republicans idiots, to slap them down. We are no longer expected to make excuses for George Allen. We can use "you are a liar" in place of "you must be mistaken." And finally we can gang up on Ann Coulter. Whatever happens, this should mean that Meet The Press (if they book any liberals for a change) should be a lot more interesting for the next few months.

Learn to Love Crooks and Liars

Yes it's partisan and yes it has a bias, but you gotta admit that having an easy-to-reference website that cheerfully coughs up the clips of politicians saying the very things they now deny they ever said is extremely useful. Below is just one example, but this happens at least once a week. In fact, flat-out deniability of recorded statements seems to be a Rove strategy - I can't imagine why they're still holding on to it. It would be like Clinton insisting that he told us he'd had sex with that woman.

Crooks and Liars » Jimmy Carter smacks Lieberman–Lieberman’s camp calls him a liar

Fun With RNC Talking Points, Vol. 17

Okay, so I've heard this one a lot lately - If anything, the 9/11 attacks were Clinton's fault.
It's a little abstract, but the argument could be sound. I'll use an example from my own life. I'm a homeowner and a few years back I discovered a wasp's nest hanging from the eaves outside our bedroom. I wasn't being attacked by wasps at the time. Had I simply ignored that next, eventually the wasps would have overtaken the entire side of the house or something. As painful as it was, I had to deal with that nest. And that, my friends, is why we are now in Iraq.
In other words, had Bill Clinton sent troops into Iraq in the 90's, then 9/11 would never have happened.
It's my wasp nest metaphor, though, so I'm gonna run with it. What I did when I found the nest was call in outside help. We got pest control people, with equipment and training, to remove the nest and the several others that had had formed around the house. Had I followed the Bush doctrine, I'd have:

• Bought a baseball bat at several times the normal cost, because my friend owns a bat company.
• Stripped down to swim trunks.
• Started hammering away at the wasp's nest, not because it represented the biggest threat but because a wasp from there had stung my dad.

And I'd still be out there right now, trying to kill individual wasps with an overpriced bat, unable to go after the other nests, which would be flourishing, filled with emboldened wasps. I suppose to broaden the metaphor, I might have invited some friends over for beers and wasp killing. They'd have helped me at first and gradually drifted off one by one saying, "fuck this, they're HIS wasps." Oh, and I'd have gone through several bats but still still no shirt or long pants.

I'd probably still have one guy who was with me, banging away at wasps with an overpriced cricket bat, but his wife and family would be screaming at him to come home or there'd be a divorce in the future for sure. Even I wouldn't understand what he was still doing there.

I could go on and on, but I need to pick up some baking soda and calamine lotion. Bring on the next Talking Point, Mehlman! I'm revved up!