TV News LIES

In early 2010, one of Washington DC’s most prestigious think tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: “It’s unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn.”

The remark, which likened killing hundreds of men, women and children – many of them noncombatants – with trimming the grass, was greeted with a light tittering around the room, which was filled with some of Washington’s most elite, highly educated and well-paid Middle East experts. Not a single one objected to the panelist’s black humor.

Pretty much Standard Operating Procedure these days:  When bad things happen, have your legal and PR staff closely question and challenge the Point of View of accusers, while working every Catch-22 connection and boondoggle in stock, trusting complaints will crash in on themselves from sheer confusion, crosswinds, and weight.

Once the status quo has been maintained and Situation Normal (All Fouled Up) has been re-instituted, one can then declare victory and divvy out promotions and bonuses, taking a year off with full pay and benefits.

The billionaires who pass out the right-wing Kool-Aid are desperately trying to push the fantasy that they are going to act out Ayn Rand's novel, and leave us all to starve if we allow that Kenyan Socialist to raise their taxes by a couple of points. That's not what it's about of course.

These people will still have more money than they could ever burn if they tried. They're really afraid that the middle class will realize they've been screwed and start wanting their country back.

Sometimes we make it a lot harder on ourselves than we have to.  This is where the acronym KISS comes in handy -- Keep It Sane and Simple.

There are other variations on that acronymic theme, of course.  Many of them even contain no rough language whatever, surprisingly, when referring to our stalwart national stewards, aka members of Congress.

The point, although it seems especially prone to idly wandering away today, is easy enough to re-grasp:  Sometimes the answers for our most difficult challenges and problems are right in front of us, jumping up and down, waving like mad, trying to be seen and heard.

The loose chatter of Romneysiacs is idling upward, as the gabblers feel their Wheaties, and are feeling especially well-armed with a bad case of Sore Loseritis, made worse by the brain-disengaging disease, Secessionist Fevers, aka Separation Anxieties.

In a word, give or take some Romney-voting states, the Old South wants O-U-T.

My first impulse is to be just as reckless in return, suggesting that all ten states, and all 100,000 petitioners in this idiot cause, be given a small, hyphenated phrase in blunt reply.  (No, I was not thinking of a biological impossibility, but that would be a most excellent guess.)  I was in fact thinking of this one:  Buh-bye.

With the exception of flag officers having ego management problems, no veteran ever alive has expected to come home down a red-carpeted aisle.  Confetti, cheering crowds, and marching bands were never in the daydream, either.

But, then -- a backhanded cuff, a knee to the groin, and a karate chop to the jugular wasn't supposed to be part of the plan, either.

It's not quite what we do, and have been doing for decades, but it's figuratively close.  Of course, it gets worse than that, too.  Far, far worse.