Monty Python

Don’t you dare say that Obama has not accomplished anything.

He has done something no president in recent times (if ever) has come close to achieving: namely, alienating and disillusioning a huge percentage of the people who put him in office. And it took him less than a year to do it. Is this guy incredible or what?

This health care debacle is obviously the last straw. And blaming Joe Lieberman will not suffice (more on the despicable one here). Did anyone expect anything different from this self-absorbed, petty, childish, greedy, shameless clown?

I’m not proposing that we fail to hold this asshole accountable. Certainly we should. But I’m perplexed by my brethren who are unable to see exactly what’s going on here. Lieberman has been on borrowed time; he knows it, and he knows he has no chance to win re-election (if he is as insane as I’m beginning to suspect, he may have deluded himself that he has a better chance if/when he actually runs as a Republian: if so he is setting himself up quite nicely. Think I’m being facetious? I’m not. If/when he gets his old, wrinkled, money-grubbing, insurance-industry-owned ass called to the carpet, he can/will go into full martyr mode, then try to reposition himself as the sane man who stood up to the loony liberals. More on this another time, maybe, but spending any time thinking about Lieberman is actually making me sick.)

But as I said, don’t blame him. Hold him accountable, sure, but remember that these histrionics were entirely predictable.

If you’re looking for someone to blame, how about the person who is supposed to be running our country. That guy who, as soon as Shameless Joe went public with his transparently fabricated sanctimony (has there ever been a more insufferably sanctimonious hypocrite in politics than Lieberman?) Obama quickly dispatched the toothless bulldog Rahm Emanuel to get Reid in line (I actually feel pity for old Harry at this point: yes, he’s a putz and a mostly ineffective empty suit, but he has seemingly tried his best on this health care clusterfuck, and it certainly appears that all he has gotten from Obama is a big bowl of nothing. Obama long ago cut him loose and laid him out to dry, slowly and painfully. Translation “Hey Harry, do my dirty work and I’ll sit on the sidelines, carefully waiting to see how this plays out; if it works, I’ll happily bask in the glory, if not, I’ll distance myself”. It’s time to stop calling this pragmatism and call it what it is: opportunistic cowardice. Obama, whatever you do, don’t even entertain the idea of channeling some very righteous indignation, and possibly breaking a sweat or getting some proverbial dirt under those fingernails).

Prediction: As has been projected (by myself and many others), whatever this bill ends up as –once it’s been whittled down beyond all recognition– Obama will suavely declare it a “major victory” and trumpet it as the centerpiece of his State of the Union Address. Hence, the hurry to get something (anything!) signed by Christmas. (Well, that and the fact that we couldn’t ever expect these well-paid, well-insured sloths in the Senate to ruin their holiday having to pass meaningful legislation!)

Obama’s arrogance, combined with this disgracefully unprincipled cowardice, has become intolerable.

He wanted to be above it all last year and not alienate the man who actively campaigned against him (Joe L.), and has bent over backwards to not speak ill of any Republicans at any time under any circumstances. If this was shrewd politics, or if this could be illustrated as a sly way of enacting his agenda by cleverly keeping his powder dry and temper cool, I would stand back in awe of his discipline. As it stands, his stance has hurt him, repeatedly, and this recent Lieberman debacle is the King Chicken coming home to roost (crapping and pissing all over the floor as he does so). The President has not invested an ounce of political capital trying to do the right thing. The only move he has made with a ruthless disregard for the fall-out is …..bailing out Wall Street! That sweetheart of a deal, without any concessions whatsoever, entirely financed by the same taxpayers who got fucked over by these swine, made it clear that Obama owes allegiance to the special interests who own him. Therefore, it’s anything but surprising that just the other day some of these so-called “fat cats” were snickering that Obama’s alleged smackdown was “just a PR stunt”. It was. Let’s call it MISSION UNACCOMPLISHED.

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If someone cares to explain to me any other rationale prompting this slapshod negotiating, and quick (spineless) capitulation other than political expediency, I’m all ears. What is most upsetting is that one can see through this like a watery turd: led by the increasingly clueless Rahm Emanuel, it’s all about the next election cycle. That, in and of itself, would be unconscionable on the human level. The kicker is, it is a non-starter on the political level as well. These guys actually seem to believe that it’s all about getting something, anything passed, then holding a press conference declaring it a huge victory with the word “reform” stamped all over it like a well-travelled guitar case, and that will be that. Of course, that is how the game is played; that is how it works. But at what cost? Sure, there will be folks who don’t follow the news that will buy the boilerplate. But at this point, even casually interested Democrats have to be scratching their heads: Gee, it smells like piss and feels warm and is kind of yellow…but they are telling me it’s Dom Perignon, so I guess I should open wide; wait, that tastes like…piss!

Put slightly less grotesquely (although that metaphor, unfortunately, is pretty accurate), if Democrats (not to mention the more ardent portion of “the base”) were understandably disillusioned by –but willing to grant benefit of the doubt on– the recent Afghanistan “surge”, this may be the proverbial bridge too far. Count me amongst that group.

Look, we all know the bottom line: this bill, no matter how shredded and soft, is still miles ahead of what any Republican could do (nothing) and, in the final analysis, will constitute progress. But good god, what a hollow victory. That’s like losing five hundred bucks at the craps table and then finding an unexpected $20 in your front pocket and declaring that it’s a net gain. Sure, that $20 is better than being broke, but it would be nice to have held on to that $500 (or even $250): the simile is strained, so insert one more suitable if you please. You get the picture. The key takeaway here is that the evolution (or devolution) of this process epitomizes the two worst characteristics any politician can encompass: cowardice and cynicism. That is a devastating combination. To his credit, as much of a craven buffoon George W. Bush has always been in his personal affairs (Daddy, bail me out again; Rove, don’t have me confront a single coffin returning from overseas; let’s do a fly-by of Katrina, etc.), he had the courage of his (admittedly idiotic and mostly backwards) convictions. Can you imagine Bush tolerating the brazen mechinations of Lieberman? At the very least, the threats and promises being made behind closed doors would be frequent and unambiguous. Could you imagine Slick Willy (the King of Triangulation himself) enduring this charade? Or Hillary? Sigh.

It would be depressing enough if you could chalk this up to arrogance or even naivetee on the part of the Obama camp (traits that have been demonstrated repeatedly, starting –and ending– with Lieberman, but also repeatedly throughout the health care “debate”): you can imagine them thinking “it’s really different now, we can rise above the muck and emerge unscathed; we’ll get them to see the light”. But I don’t think, at this point, that is feasible; nobody could possibly be that delusional (well, except Sarah Palin). What’s much, much worse, is the ugly reality that Obama (as a politician, as a person) is not terribly invested in any of this on a personal level. One has never gotten the sense, through any of this, that Obama is tossing and turning at night, or that he wants to sacrifice any of that (rapidly diminishing) political capital on doing this thing properly. (And any dupe who still furrows their brow and declares that Obama is only eating the shit sandwich served to him by the simpletons in the Senate needs to revist the always-astute Glen Greenwald today.)

Never fear, there is plenty of blame to go around: these “moderate” Democrats are all going to lose their seats in 2010. Good riddance, obviously. Yet, it’s amazing that in the by-now cliched fear (did we not learn anything in the 2006 mid-terms) that catering to the center-right orthodoxy, otherwise known as not taking a stance on anything except status quo –a status quo that any middle class American would agree is FUBAR– is a recipe for ruin? In that regard, their collective comeuppance will be deeply satisfying. Except for the fact that all of them will be replaced by actual Republicans. Can you say lose/lose? Or just: loser.

Lastly, it was entirely predictable (and equal parts distressing and infuriating) that as soon as Howard Dean (the man who should be enjoying his second term right now…) spoke truth to corruption, the White House attack curs came after him. Let’s recap: Joe Lieberman emasculates the Dems (and Obama), several times, and there is not even a semblance of blowback. Dean, with facts at his side and a record of actually putting people before politics, voices his concerns, and immediately he is savaged (the fact that Emanuel apparently loathes Dean is all you need to know about Emanuel, and speaks volumes about Dean’s honesty and integrity). And of course, Dean will be easy to marginalize. He, after all, is the crazy left lunatic who screamed that time. To see Dean betrayed so ruthlessly (and so quickly: boy does the Obama team act quickly when it feels the need to) should be the final affront for anyone who fancies themselves remotely progressive. If you are even beginning to rationalize or spin this any other way, just stop.

So…to summarize: Obama endorses a bill that continues to have pieces hacked off, like the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, which becomes less popular with each iteration, and through this imbecilic obsession with a non-existent middle-ground, emboldens his enemies and infuriates his allies. In fact, Obama is the Black Knight: his viability is sliced away, chunk by chunk, and he (and his mouthpieces) insist this is exactly the way they wanted it. And after a while, there is little choice but to believe it is the way they wanted it.

Concluding thought: Bush was a modern day Nero in the sense that he fiddled away while the empire burned. But he was a child, utterly overwhelmed and mostly incurious about how the fire started or who might put it out. Obama, on the other hand, knows exactly what needs to be done. He also is aware that fire is hot, and that if you get too close you might just burn yourself. And why go to all the trouble of putting on that fire suit, and then you waste all that water when the fire would just burn itself out anyway. After a while. And no matter how the fire goes out, if it’s no longer blazing, we can claim credit for making it stop…

Right?

Enough good things really can’t be said about Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson, also known as The Kids in the Hall. I celebrated them, in 2007, for the Popmatters “Best of TV on DVD” feature, here, and this was as succinct a summation as I was capable of conjuring up:

The Kids in the Hall existed in a sort of parallel universe to the much more popular, much less brilliant Saturday Night Live. Though comparisons between the two are inevitable, perhaps because of the Lorne Michaels connection, Kids in the Hall should be appraised—and appreciated—as part of the crooked line connecting Monty Python, which preceded it, and Mr. Show, which followed. While attracting an intense cult fan base, the Kids faced at least three major obstacles that made crossover success pretty much an impossibility. They were Canadian and had a pronounced—and, for fans, most welcome—quirkiness. They were disarmingly intelligent, yet always willing and eager to embrace the oddness of life. Their one-two punch of ingenuity and eccentricity could be like Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoons—you either got them, immediately, or you did not. Lastly, they dressed in drag. Often, and convincingly. Too convincingly, perhaps, for the average American sensibility circa 1990-something.

That works, I think. You can, and should, encourage those not-in-the-know to check them out, but it seems safe to predict that KITH will remain forever a cult phenomenon, appreciated by a discerning minority. Not unlike Monty Python, come to think of it. Not the movies, but the actual TV series: everyone loves Python and everyone ensures they get their props, but I can’t say I know too many people who have actually seen more than a handful of the actual sketches.

Speaking of the sketches, it’s an impossible, and pretty futile endeavor to attempt isolating the single skit that best represents the whole (whether it’s MP or KITH or even a shorter-lived gem like The Chappelle Show). But it’s still funny, and possibly imperative, for fans to play around with the agonizing, if ultimately unimportant distinction. There are at least a dozen serious candidates, and different KITH fans would invariably choose different ones, but that is also part of the fun.

One skit in particular I never get tired of is “Work Pig” (from Season 4) which, unlike many of the great KITH sketches, is not a collaboration, but pretty much a vehicle for Bruce McCulloch. It has all of the elements of a prototypical top-tier KITH effort: the quirky, dark, surreal humor, the clever (and always remarkably subtle) social commentary, and mostly the rather inimitable oddball sensibility. This skit, as anyone who has seen it will know (and for those that don’t, see below), works so perfectly because its skewering of the frenetic corporate circus is timeless.

But watching it again, recently, something hit me.

This had to be made in the early ’90s because it nails all the last vestiges of the old world order: the phones, the fax machine, the suspenders, and especially the rolodex. That skit could not be set up the same way now for the simple reason that no office looks that way today. And one is tempted to think: thank God. Who needs the bad old days when you actually put people on hold not merely because you were busy but because you actually talked on the phone. Plus, what else did you have to do? No Internet to surf, no e-mail to send and receive, just…work.

But wait. That is still happening; it just happens in one centralized place: on the monitor of a ubiquitous PC. The activities he is engaging in (still called multi-tasking, one assumes) are all occurring now; they merely appear more innocuous—or unthreatening, because they are all trapped in electronic ether, they are confined to a 12 inch screen. Suddenly it’s slightly more unnerving to consider that if, like myself, it’s not uncommon for you to have more than 10 windows (various sites) along with MS Outlook, and one or more spreadsheets and/or MS Word documents, and maybe a CD playing, you are bopping around doing a million things. Here’s the thing: it just doesn’t require you to bop around. It’s all happening, in your head. And how much more intense—and damaging—is that type of information overload? It’s no wonder (if, like myself) at least once a day you open a new window to look something up and get momentaritly sidetracked (say, you see the window you’d previously opened and remember you need to finish that task or send that e-mail) and then, when you turn back to the welcome screen on for a fresh window, have no earthly idea what it was you were looking for. We’ve been moved out of the pigstys, perhaps, but maybe the joke is on us. Possibly, people will look back at our moment in time and ask how the fuck we outsmarted ourselves into being even busier every day.

Or, like the songs says, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. Like your mind.

Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” Moment

Work Pig: Bringing Home the Bacon