or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
December 09, 2005
More Evidence David Broder Is Right! Right! Right!
Last week I wrote a letter to David Broder about this exchange between him and Tim Russert on Meet the Press:
MR. RUSSERT: David Broder, is it possible for official Washington--the president, Democratic leaders, Republican leaders--to arrive at common ground, a consensus position on Iraq?MR. DAVID BRODER: It's possible, Tim, but they won't get there by arguing about who did what three years ago. And this whole debate about whether there was just a mistake or misrepresentation or so on is, I think, from the public point of view largely irrelevant. The public's moved past that.
In my letter I inquired what the evidence was for Mr. Broder's assertion. Mr. Broder hasn't seen fit to respond, but I think that's only fair, since it was such a stupid question. Every passing day brings more evidence no one cares about this dumb issue—for instance, this NY Times/CBS poll released yesterday (pdf):
58. How important do you think it is right now for members of Congress to question the Bush Administration about the way the intelligence was used in order to make the case for going to war inIraq-- do you think it is very important, somewhat important, not too important, or not important at all?56% Very
24% Somewhat
9% Not too
9% Not at all
You see? An overwhelming 18% majority of the population think this should be ignored, while a tiny 80% minority disagree. The danger, of course, is that this small, irrelevant 80% minority will somehow gain influence in our political process. However, I think we can sleep soundly with heroes such as David Broder protecting our great republic.
Posted at December 9, 2005 12:07 PM | TrackBackOk, at the risk of repeating myself, I am going to say, again, This hurts my brain. A lot.
Maybe I should write a script that randomly leaves that phrase in your comments every couple of days.
Posted by: patrick at December 9, 2005 12:38 PMI'm not sure why they left out that 2% that responded "I'm a carrot." Surely they are not irrelevant?
Posted by: saurabh at December 9, 2005 03:01 PMThanks for the vote of confidence, saurabh. People like me are a largely ignored subset of the American populace-- and the only representation we had in Congress just resigned.
It's not easy being orange.
Posted by: Sully at December 9, 2005 03:38 PMGood posting, man. This is what good blogging is about: bringing the snark. You gotta bring the snark and make a point with it.
Well done, you obviously French person.
Posted by: DBK at December 9, 2005 03:41 PMJonathan, am I right that you know/are one of the people involved in After Downing Street? I have a question about the national call-in day to Congress this past Tuesday, Dec 6.
I first heard of it in mid-afternoon, when I got an email alert that MoveOn sent out after noon (eastern time). I am on several other email alert networks, including United for Peace & Justice and the Friends Committee for National Legislation. I was more than a little surprised 1) not to hear from any other network about the call-in, and 2) not to read any advance or day-of publicity from any bloggers, including those who are very closely involved in organizations said to be sponsoring the call-in.
Do you have any sense of who initiated the call (which I think was a great idea)? Also, might the same organizations might push the idea again soon, only this time with a tiny bit more advance notice (so grassroots activists can put their local networks in motion) and using bloggers plus other networks to broaden it out further?
Now is the moment for Congresspeople, particularly Democrats, to feel the heat to sign onto an 'out real soon' position. I'm concerned that this last call-in wasn't as effective as it could be. I'm open to hearing that in this case the 'element of surprise' was more desirable than much more intense participation, but I'd be interested to know why, and don't believe that's a worthwhile trade-off for any future call-in-to-Congress day.
Posted by: Nell Lancaster at December 9, 2005 04:04 PMOf course, none of this should come as a great suprise, given that the 18% majority are currently making all the policy in the country, while the 80% minority is blatantly ignored.
Posted by: J Robinowitz at December 9, 2005 06:29 PMWho are you, anyway?
I don't see why you should be allowed to let facts to get in the way of the assertions of a guy known as the DEAN OF THE PRESS CORPS who has his head up his ass about the most important issue of the day.
People like you should be, well, something!
