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New Producer of Fox News’ Troubled Comedy Show Is Limbaugh’s Viagra Party Pal

Jon Ponder

Earlier Attempt Starring Laura Ingraham Apparently Failed

Rush Limbaugh is America’s funniest conservative, hands down. So when the Fox News Channel needed someone to produce a rightwing version of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” who else would they turn to but a friend of Rush Limbaugh.

Fox has hired Joel Surnow who, besides being an FORL, is a co-creator and producer of “24.” If his name sounds familiar, it’s because he was one of three guests at Rush Limbaugh’s viagra stag party on a Caribbean island last July.

Development on the show apparently stalled earlier this year after a misbegotten attempt hosted by Laura Ingraham apparently didn’t fly. Turns out sneering at liberals isn’t funny.

For the moment, the show is titled “This Just In” (but that will change because AOL has a show with the same name). It has two hosts who are both unknowns, Susan Yeagley and Kurt Long. (Dennis Miller was busy.) She has some impressive comedy credits, including bits on “Reno 911,” and his resume includes hosting a game show and a few sitcom appearances.

Seriously though, dying is easy, comedy is hard. Mr. Surnow’s “24” is a successful, suspenseful weekly drama. But producing a daily comedy show about current events uses a different set of creative muscles.

Even with Mr. Surnow onboard, this show will never work. Conservatives can’t do satire because truth-speaking to power is abrasive to their authoritarian worldview. Conservatives can’t tell the difference between satire and sarcasm. Satire can certainly get laughs but scarcasm — as anyone who’s ever spent time around thirteen-year-olds will tell you — just ain’t funny.

Racism Rears Its Ugly Head Outside the South Yet Again

Trish

If anyone still needed proof that racism against blacks isn’t just a Southern thing, this week offered plenty.

First, there was the video of Michael Richards, whose Seinfeld character, Kramer, was the personification of New York City quirky. It’s hard not to get queasy watching the video, and harder still to come up with any reasonable explanation for the outburst other than…racism.

This was brought home to me the other night. I work at UPS part-time and a group of us — all white — were discussing the incident when an African-American supervisor walked up. Catching the tail-end of the discussion before silence descended, he asked us to elaborate. “He used the n-word,” someone said. “Oh, well,” the supervisor said, as if to say, “What’s new about that?” “But it wasn’t like a white person trying to be all cool rap,” someone added. “How was it different?” he asked. As everyone looked at their feet, I answered, “Because he said, ‘If this were fifty years ago, you, James, would be hanging from a tree with a fork up your ass.'”

Yeah, we’re talking way beyond tossing out the n-word for street cred.

The report that poor downtrodden white frat boys in Boston are fighting back frosted it.

Joe Mroszczyk, president of the College Republicans at Boston University, admits he set out to stir up a hornet’s nest when he came up with the idea of offering a whites-only scholarship at the school…

All the media attention is focused on a $250 Caucasian Achievement and Recognition Scholarship offered by Mroszczyk and the BU chapter of the College Republicans…

According to Mroszczyk, his group is offering the scholarship to point out “how ridiculous it is to have any sort of racially based scholarship.”

Well how very — pardon the expression — white of him to point out this particular sentiment in this unique way. Actually, Mroszczyk admitted he didn’t think it all up himself. He was inspired by a similar scholarship offered a couple of years ago at Roger Williams University in, not Montgomery, Alabama but Bristol, Rhode Island.

My “said it until people are ready to put a bullet in my head to get me to shut up about it” position continues to be that as long as America uses the South as a scapegoat for the racism rampant across the land — to neatly compartmentalize it and refuse to own it — we will never get any closer to solving our national dilemma. To me, it begins with admitting we are all sinners and going forth from there. But as long as the Michael Richardses and Joe Mroszczyks of the world can feel themselves superior to our backwards Southern asses, nobody’s getting anywhere.

Iraq Plan Unmitigated Disaster

Trish

Oh yeah. We’re getting closer by the day to being able to hand this thing over to the Iraqis and walk away. Because, you know, their police and security forces have really taken to this whole training thing.

Shiite militiamen doused six Sunni Arabs with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by, and killed 19 other Sunnis in attacks on their mosques Friday, taking revenge for the previous day’s attack on a Sadr City slum…

The bloodshed underlined the impotence of the Iraqi army and police to quell determined sectarian extremists at a time when the United States appears to be considering a move to accelerate the handover of security responsibilities.

New Christian Coalition Head Resigns; Not Whacked-Out Enough

Trish

The leadership of the Christian Coalition, which has apparently not been paying attention lately, missed a rare opportunity to join mainstream America.

What does the Christian Coalition have to do with Jesus, beyond being a syllable in their name, I mean?

The reverend elected to take over as president of the Christian Coalition of America said he will not assume the role because of differences in philosophy.

The Rev. Joel Hunter of Longwood’s Northland, A Church Distributed, said Wednesday that the national group would not let him expand the organization’s agenda beyond opposing abortion and gay marriage…

Hunter, who was scheduled to take over the socially conservative political group Jan. 1, said he had hoped to focus on issues such as poverty and the environment.

“These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about,” Hunter said.

But what does the Christian Coalition have to do with Jesus, beyond being a syllable in their name, I mean?

Oh well. Even though they let this decent-sounding guy walk, maybe there was some softening in the group’s hard stance, or some sign they are open to change.

Not a chance.

A statement issued by the coalition said Hunter resigned because of “differences in philosophy and vision.” The board accepted his decision “unanimously,” it states.

NC 08: One-Time Millworker Still Has a Chance to Topple Heir to Mill Fortune

Jon Ponder
Despite lingering anger over CAFTA, conventional wisdom said Rep. Hayes would skate by Kissell on election night. But the final vote showed Kissell trailing by only 350 votes.

The midterms are not over. In fact, in North Carolina’s 8th District, Larry Kissell, one of my favorite candidates, may still have a chance to topple the Republican incumbent, Rep. Robin Hayes. Kissell is a former textile worker and teacher, and Hayes is an heir to the Cannon Mills textile empire, which employed tens of thousands of people in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in its heyday. (Toward the end of the heyday, I lived in the 8th District during my high school years.)

Cannon Mills is gone now. It has been sold and renamed at least three times. The heirs to the fortune, including Rep. Hayes, sold out long ago. Still, Rep. Hayes caused a stir during the debate on CAFTA in June 2005. Just two years earlier, on July 30, 2003, the last vestige of the Cannon family’s empire, by now called Pillowtext, closed its mills, leaving around 4,000 of Rep. Hayes’ constituents jobless in a single blow. Voting for CAFTA could certainly cause more jobs to move overseas. But Rep. Hayes was apparently strong-armed by then House Majority Leader Tom Delay, on behalf of the White House political office, into voting for the treaty.

Despite lingering anger over CAFTA in his district, conventional wisdom said Rep. Hayes would skate by Kissell on election night. But the final vote showed Kissell trailing by only 350 votes. Two and a half weeks — and a couple of recounts — later, Kissell is still not ready to concde:

Voters in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District will have to wait for a manual inspection of ballots next week to determine who will represent them in the 110th Congress, with four-term Republican Rep. Robin Hayes holding a mere 329-vote lead over Democratic challenger Larry Kissell.

A count of provisional ballots and a machine recount that ended Wednesday revealed that Hayes’ margin diminished by nearly 150 votes since he declared victory over Kissell on Election Night two weeks ago…

Johnnie McLean, the chief deputy director of North Carolina’s board of elections, said county elections officials will manually inspect ballots in 3 percent of precincts on Nov. 29 and 30. If the sampling reveals a statistical inconsistency, state officials may decide to pursue a districtwide manual recount.

Kissell ran as a populist which offered a stark contrast from Rep. Hayes, who embodies corporatism.

Bush at Camp David for Thanksgiving

Jon Ponder

Bush is at Camp David (with Condi). AmericaBlog suggests he’s at the presidential country retreat hoping to recharge what little presidential mojo he has left.

My first thought was Kitty Kelly’s description in her book about the Bushes, “The Family,” of George W. Bush doing cocaine at Camp David when his father was in office. (The source of this story appears to have been Sharon, Neil’s ex-wife.)

Six Car Bombs Kill 146 in Baghdad – 268 Wounded in Sadr City

Jon Ponder

All hell is breaking loose:

Six car bombs killed 146 people in a Shi’ite stronghold today in the bloodiest attack in Baghdad since the US invasion and the authorities imposed an indefinite curfew on a city fearful of a sectarian civil war.

A further 268 people were wounded in the series of blasts in the capital’s Sadr City slum, a Health Ministry official said.

The blasts came at the same time as gunmen surrounded and fired on the Shi’ite-run Health Ministry in one of the boldest daylight assaults by militants in Baghdad. Mortars later crashed down on a nearby Sunni enclave in an apparent reprisal attack.

Groundwork Laid for Cheney’s Ouster – One Step Closer to V.P. McCain

Jon Ponder

Novak Changes Bush’s Loyalty Meme

The latest Evans-Novak Political Report suggests the way President Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld caused considerable friction in the White House. “Even Vice President Dick Cheney is said to be profoundly disturbed by Rumsfeld’s treatment.”

Pres. George W. Bush might never be impeached, but he could be forced to resign as a result of the coming investigations by the Democrats. If he and his co-conspirator, Vice Pres. Cheney, were to resign together, Speaker Pelosi would become president. Any risk of this is intolerable, so Cheney has to go first.

Unhappy with Bush, the GOP establishment will want Sen. John McCain to replace Cheney. If Bush resigns, Pres. McCain would serve out the rest of his term and then enjoy the sublime benefit of barnstorming the country in 2008 on Air Force One. (The fact that McCain and Bush hate each other would be icing on the cake.)

I expected to hear rumors about Cheney after the holidays: his health problems are flaring up, he is bored in his diminished role and wants to return to business — or that he and Bush are having a major spat — but why wait:

The latest Evans-Novak Political Report suggests the way President Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld caused considerable friction in the White House. “Even Vice President Dick Cheney is said to be profoundly disturbed by Rumsfeld’s treatment.”

…[Robert] Novak also suggests Bush’s “shrouded decision” came after he declared Rumsfeld would serve out the second term. “It fits a pattern of a President who is secretive and impersonal.”

Wait. I thought Bush was “loyal to a fault?” Did Novak unilaterally change the president’s meme? If so, did it come from Karl?