Category Archives: cable tv
Washington Post Fact Checks SNL
The Washington Post actually fact checked a Saturday Night Live skit. Zachary Goldfarb rated the skit not helpful to the president.
The sketch was about Obama’s executive action on immigration (mislabeled as an “executive order”, Goldfarb helpfully corrects). It was set to “Schoolhouse Rock” and featured a “Bill” singing about how a bill becomes law. A cynical singing “Executive Order” explains how things really work, while President Obama repeatedly kicks the crooning “Bill” down the Capitol steps.
I rate it Damn Funny.
Since the Post is now rating comedy routines Michelle Malkin immediately wanted to know why it didn’t fact check Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin character for claiming she could see Russia from her house.
Personally, I want to know if Super Colossal Jimmy Carter is really 90 feet tall.
Cartoon Fact Check
My cartoon deliberately confuses Zachary Goldfarb’s fact check with the Post’s Glenn Kessler’s pinocchio ratings. I hope they don’t fact check cartoons now. On the other hand I could use the publicity.
Bystander President
Reagan was the Teflon president. He had an easy charm and nothing bad seemed to stick. Obama is the bystander president. He reads about bad things that happen on his watch as if they had nothing to do with him. He’s just like you and me, sitting at the bar madder’n hell. Except he gets to go on TV and complain. At least I get to draw a cartoon.
NFL vs. NOW
The NFL is in a panic over angry women and angry sportswriters, sometimes one and the same. Commissioner Roger Goodell held a press conference yesterday to announce a crackdown on football players behaving badly. It played to very bad reviews. He apologized and promised a new and more sensitive NFL. But no number of pink ribbons will satisfy the National Organization for Women. President Terry O’Neill immediately renewed calls for Goodell’s head.
Never mind that the arrest rate for NFL players is lower than the rate for adult men in the general population. Here’s a chart from Deadspin.
NFL vs. NOW
So, why the uproar now? Ray Rice was seen last February dragging his unconscious fiancé Janay Palmer out of an Atlantic City casino elevator, caveman style. It was obvious something brutal had happened. Rice was charged with aggravated assault and placed in a one year pre-trial intervention program. The NFL suspended him for two games. With the unpleasantness behind them, Janay and Ray got married and lived happily ever after.
That is until an elevator video surfaced this month on TMZ showing Ray actually dropping Janay with a left hook. Then the NFL took action to punish the victim by taking away her husband’s of income. Rice was suspended indefinitely.
Video footage evidently concentrates the mind, whether it’s of a knockout punch or a beheading. That puts Commissioner Goodell and President Obama in the same boat. Well, not actually, NOW still likes Obama.
Bokbluster Weekend NATO Editon
Last week President Obama assured member nations that NATO would defend them. Meanwhile, terrorists frolicked by the pool at the abandoned American Embassy in Tripoli.
Not NATO
On Friday Ukraine signed a ceasefire agreement with Russian separatists. Ukraine isn’t a NATO member. The only American military assistance it received where Meals Ready to Eat. Still it was making progress against the separatists. That is until Russian tanks invaded.
The beheading of two Americans seems to have concentrated the country’s attention on the use of military force. Even Rand Paul wants to wipe out ISIS. He says he’s always been in favor of war if it’s in the national interest. How far does the national interest go?
Pretty far, according to Robert Kagan and Victor Davis Hanson. They both made the same point that when you withdraw military power bad guys fill the vacuum.
Brett Bair interviewed three CIA contractors who were on the ground in Benghazi when Ambassador Stevens was killed. They say their station chief told them to stand down. Eventually they defied orders and fought the terrorists, some of whom may now be poolside in Tripoli.
Mad Mad World of Comic Genius
Jonathan Winters was a mentor to Robin Williams. Both were tormented comic geniuses. Russell Brand calls it a “divine madness” in this essay in The Guardian.
I was surprised to learn Jonathan Winters spent 8 months in a psychiatric hospital just before his brilliant performance in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. He wasn’t doing research. He managed to outlast his demons and died of natural causes at age 87.
Update: Here are some thoughts from Ben Stein on comics, depression, and suicide.
