It appears former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has, as we used to say, slipped a groove.
His Honor is currently running around telling everyone who will listen the President of the United States, Barack H. Obama doesn't love America. According to Giuliani, Obama was educated by a communist, Frank Marshall Davis and for 17 years attended the church of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a preacher who, "said God damn America, not God bless America."
After he began to take flack over his accusation Giuliani told the New York Post, "Somebody has to raise these issues. Somebody has to have the courage to stand up."
Actually what somebody needs to do is tell Rootin Tootin Rudy it isn't 2008 any more. All this nonsense was thrown about relentlessly during that ugly campaign after it dawned on horrified white conservatives an African American liberal could end up being president. In fact, given the dated nature of his sudden burst of courage, one would think the next step for Giuliani is to make the breath taking charge the president's birth certificate is a forgery and he was really born in Kenya.
It is unclear if Giuliani's trip in the Way Back Machine is tied to some unidentified political campaign, or can be written off as simple dementia. Whichever the case it certainly appears the man once called, America's Mayor, is unaware Barack Obama can't run for a third term--that he is a lame duck president with just under two years left in office.
Meanwhile, Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly has his blood pressure up over a story which appeared in the on line magazine, Mother Jones. The piece written by David Corn questions O'Reilly's claims that he reported from a war zone in the early 1980's.
According to the Mother Jones editors the ever subtle O'Reilly has called Corn, a liar, a guttersnipe, and a disgusting piece of garbage. In various interviews Big Bill has been quoted as saying, "This guy is a far left assassin. That's what he does. Everyone knows that." He also labeled the article as a political hit job.
While the word assassin is typical O'Reilly overkill, the politics of both Mother Jones and Corn are unquestionably on the left. In fact he and the magazine were responsible for the airing of the surreptitious cell phone video which exposed Mitt Romney as an elitist asshole during the 2012 presidential election.
It's Corn's contention O'Reilly was never in an actual "war zone" as he has said, or at least implied over the years. Instead, he showed up in Buenos Aires while working for CBS to cover the sometimes violent protests against the military government after the 1982 Falklands War between Great Britain and Argentina.
O'Reilly firmly believes he was in a war zone because at times there was gunfire exchanged between Argentine troops and civilians who had taken to the streets.
Billy O, who described himself last night as, "your humble correspondent," pretty much personifies a school yard bully. When challenged his veins bulge and he begins yelling over the top of the person he is arguing with in the apparent belief belligerence and volume validates whatever it is he is bloviating about. In an interview with something called TV Newser, he was quoted as saying he wants reporters to, "...verify what I'm saying because it is easily verifiable, then I expect David Corn to be in the kill zone."
The Mother Jones people gasped in appalled disbelief at his terminology. In a letter to O'Reilly the co-editors babbled about their concerns for staff safety then demanded he renounce the "kill zone" metaphor.
Yeah, right--good luck with that one.
So there we have it. Rudy Giuliani may or may not be as crazy as a bed bug on acid while Bill O'Reilly may or may not have reported from a war zone 30 plus years ago.
Perhaps the greater question to ask right now is why do we even care what these two clowns think, or did? One of them is no longer relevant on the national stage, while the other is nothing more than a bombastic shill for the ultra right wing.
The only possible answer we have is both Rudy Giuliani and David Corn needed to remind everyone they are still living on the planet. In order to do so Giuliani chose to regurgitate six and a half year old bullshit and Corn picked a fight with a guy he knew would go ballistic.
Sadly, this is the state of American politics and journalism during the second month of the year of our Lord, 2015.
sic vita est
DC
2-21-15
No comments:
Post a Comment