Afghanistan: A short play

President Obama: You know Stan, I'm glad to have you running things in Afghanistan. As I've said many times publicly: your strategies, leadership, and vision are absolutely integral to any future success our mission in Afghanistan will have. Especially now that we're entering one of the most critical "make or break" times in our offensive campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Again, you are absolutely integral to our mission.


General McChrystal: Thank you Mr. President and let me say how honored I am to be leading this vital charge against the Afghan insurgency.
...
By-the-by, and this is just a little thing.... I may have given a tiny little interview to Rolling Stone where I maybe had a few too many Bud Light Limes and was maybe a little critical of your administration. Nothing serious, but maybe a few of my aides go a little too far in criticizing specific people in your administration. Not me, mind you, my aides. A little embarrassing? Sure. A little short sighted? Sure. Ripe for parody? Definitely. But nothing that would cause anyone to drastically reassess our geopolitical strategy vis-a-vis the war on terror and our counterinsurgency strategies and Afghanistan policies... right?


President Obama: ..............YOU'RE FUCKING FIRED!!!!!!

FIN

Nice to see that we won't let something like a war or a war strategy get dicked around over what amounts to an indelicate decorum gaffe combined with incessant, brainless 24-hour news outrage, right? Eh, at least we'll have those trillions from those Afghan minerals to spend soon.

Quote of the day

When last we left the state of Louisiana and it's 2010 Senate race it was expected that they would re-elect David "the Bayou Whoremaster" Vitter to the Senate despite that whole thing where he was deeply involved in paying hookers for sex and wearing diapers.... sexual diapers. Because whore-banging is a Conservative Christian value. But there was also a point in time where it seemed Vitter would be challenged... by porn star Stormy Daniels. Then there were a bunch of allegations of spousal abuse and a car bombing and she seemingly dropped out.

But know with tales of abusing her husband and maybe paying some dude to tie some C4 to her political consultant's car now firmly in the past, it looks like Daniels is back to challenge Vitter in the GOP primary, splitting the crucial swing votes of "people who like hypocrites who drill prostitutes" and "people who like porn-stars with an affinity for hand to hand combat and explosives". The Louisiana GOP is spitting (not swallowing) mad and lashing out at her and what must assuredly be the Democratic conspiracy behind it. Louisiana Democrats saw the ball lovingly lined up on top of it's tee and decided to take a good hard swing at it.

Kevin Franck, spokesman for the Louisiana Democratic Party, said neither the party nor the Melancon campaign recruited Daniels.

"If the Louisiana Republican Party is uncomfortable with a Republican challenger who has a history of selling sex, I would suggest they reconsider standing by an incumbent with a history of paying for it," Franck said in an e-mailed statement.

Gentlemen, I do believe that is game, set, and match.

I fear for the well-being of Chris Matthews

"The Silent Echo Chamber", part of Harry Shearer's ongoing "Nontalking Heads" video project, is a multi-screen video installation showcasing media celebrities as they pass those dead moments before taping the next segment. From this rare footage of the subjects in their natural habitats, we can glean several important pieces of information:

• Brian Williams paws at his Blackberry like a 13 year-old in an obvious effort to avoid making eye contact with Tom Brokaw, much less discussing what they saw in that Thai nightclub in 2004. (0:01)
• Keith Olbermann is always either reading or scratching at imaginary bugs crawling up his neck. (0:25)
• Charlie Gibson apparently just told George Stephanopoulos that it's straight to bed without dinner. (0:50)
• Chris Matthews can't stop thinking about that dead prostitute in his trunk. (1:05)

Seriously, if nothing else, watch the footage of Matthews at 1:05. That man has some weight on his soul.

The installation is on display through June 6 at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center. Maybe some of the GOP heavy-hitters can swing by during their $700-per-ticket money-grab Southern Republican Leadership Conference, which begins tonight.

Broken News: AMERICANS ARE DEAD IN HAITI!!!!!!!!

PORT AU PRINCE-In what was initially thought to be a minor geological event notable only for its proximity to the United States, reports made almost a week after the fact revealed something so shocking that America, and indeed the world, must now stand up and take notice.

According to reports filed by the US media, a minimum of 17 Americans were killed during the quake that may or may not have damaged areas outside of where these specific Americans were staying. Upwards of 5,500 Americans are also missing, feared dead as a result of events that we are now allowed to consider important.

“My God, the toll that has been wrought on America has been incalculable,” observed Red Cross spokesman Erica Paymer.

“Here we all were, thinking this was a minor curiosity of little importance that might allow for some pundit posturing or celebrity tax write-offs. But thanks to the vigilance of an American media that incessantly mentions 17 dead Americans, we now know the true toll of this horrific event.”

In addition to the dead Americans, there are also a number of other dramatic inconveniences to America as a result of the Haitian catastrophe. Initial reports point to a precipitous uptick in Wyclef Jean sightings, as well as some sort of correlation between the Haiti event and a decrease in backup supplies of food and water held by relief organizations.

In fact, several aid workers stationed in Miami noted that pallets of bottled water traditionally reserved for filling Super Soakers or moistening MRE’s consumed when nobody felt like driving to a nearby McDonald's had mysteriously disappeared.

Flights bound for Haitian resorts and connecting flights to other South American resorts have also been canceled due to an apparent increase in other kinds of airplanes flying into the Port-au-Prince airport for some as-yet undefined reason. But all of this pales in comparison to the hardships the earthquake has caused to cruise ships docking nearby.

“They cut our jet ski time in half and canceled the glass-bottom boat ride and never told us why,” lamented Helen St. Croix, a passenger on the Carnival Cruise Ship The Aristocrat. “Honestly, it was just a bit of ground rumbling, tragic though the deaths of those Americans were.”

“The worst bit was at the evening luau. We barely had enough local staff to dig the pig out of the fire pit and there weren’t nearly enough waiters. I had to get my mojito myself. You don’t think this earthquake thingy dingy affected people other than Americans… do you?”

This sense of dread seems to be growing more common amongst both the moneyed elite partying on the beach and those watching this tragic jet ski situation unfold back home. While most are content to believe that those brave, selfless dead Americans are the only story here, others are beginning to search for different story angles.

“You know, I keep trying to lead these searches for injured or missing Americans amongst these curiously piled heaps of concrete that seem to be everywhere. But all of these mocha-colored chattering and screeching obstacles keep getting in my way. I wonder what the hell they are,” wondered a puzzled Jim Ridgels, field correspondent for CNN Headline News. “It’s the damnedest thing.”

Others have more solid ideas about what is going on.

“I have come to learn that those annoying, intrusive figures Ridgels refers to are the native inhabitants of this island,” observed MSNBC journalist Stig Danforth. “Apparently they were also near the areas where American lives were claimed and were themselves also affected.”

“It is most important to realize that these swarthy humanoids are very much like us and deserve our compassion. That is why I have taken it upon myself to interject myself into their poorly organized rescue efforts. Viewers seem to like that I am helping these poor creatures. They're like children! Some might say ‘Stig, aren’t you just hampering these relief efforts in an attempt to gain face-time for yourself and taking away from the real story here?’ And to that I say, no. The story here is the dead Americans. The secondary story here is me and other enterprising journalists creating an air of goodwill for ourselves and filling airtime by being shown helping these poor, disadvantaged mud people that have been unfortunately drawn into this event.”

“Understand?,” he angrily finished.

But whether or not these stories of people other than Americans being affected are true or just the wanton exaggerations of fame-seeking journalists, one thing is clear: this is an uniquely American tragedy.

The country, for now, is expected to pay attention until such a time as stories of dead Americans stop coming out of this shapeless, faceless landmass which we don’t know the location of or are even completely sure exists. That, or until the Super Bowl kicks off. Whichever comes first.

The Michael Jackson Memorial

Goddamn I hate this country.

Smokey Robinson reading a statement from Nelson Mandela. The "I didn't think we were gonna get to see the corpse, but we did" gold casket buzz. The celebrities hanging around like they just showed up to the Grammy's and really needed the bump in album sales next week. The maudlin performances of Jackson hits with famous singers punctuating every line they sung with a look of "I just sang the most meaningful, touching, and important line IN HISTORY" appearing on their faces. The endless stories from people who knew him who want us to know that, no seriously, he was a normal human being at some point. Al Sharpton calling for a national day of mourning. A bankrupt city in a bankrupt state where the Governor is handing out Arnold funbucks and ball & paddle games in lieu of pay, shelling out upwards of $4 million (and climbing) to pay for this circus. I'm sure it'll end with Joe Jackson running out, plugging his new record label, and then announcing he'd set up a kiosk outside where he was going to sell vials of MJ's ground up bones as a surefire cure for erectile dysfunction.

Take note America, this is how you gloss over two decades of child rape, seclusion, baby buying, child dangling, bankruptcy, and emergence as a walking punchline. By pretending he died a week after Dangerous came out. Which was when the rape allegations started up, so that's about right.

Souter out

David Souter has had it up to here with all your Supreme Court bullshit. He's finally leaving to start that prog-metal band he kept mentioning in all his minority and majority opinions. Knights of Justice. He's already got a 12 minute opus loosely based around the Boumediene decision. Why's he leaving? Mostly because he hates Washington, hates politics, hates the politicization of the court, hates the court itself (calling it a "annual intellectual lobotomy" every time a term started up) and he ain't too crazy about your ugly mug either. He's gone as soon as they can find his replacement.

Justice Souter, who was appointed in 1990 by a Republican president, the first George Bush, but became one of the most reliable members of the court’s liberal wing, has grown increasingly sour on Washington and intends to return to his home state, New Hampshire, according to the people briefed on his plans. One official said the decision might be announced as early as Friday.

The departure will open the first seat for a Democratic president to fill in 15 years and could prove a test of Mr. Obama’s plans for reshaping the nation’s judiciary. Confirmation battles for the Supreme Court in recent years have proved to be intensely partisan and divisive moments in Washington, but Mr. Obama has more leeway than his predecessors because his party holds such a strong majority in the Senate.

Replacing Justice Souter with a liberal would not change the basic makeup of the court, where he and three other justices hold down the left wing against a conservative caucus of four justices. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a moderate Republican appointee, often provides the swing vote that controls important decisions.

All that being said, Souter isn't THAT liberal, like Thurgood Marshall was. But he became a solidly rational, liberal leaning Justice. He will be missed. He also wasn't as liberal as the right wing will pretend the person to replace him is. Joy of joys, I can't wait for that circus. So and so wants free mandatory abortions for all from illegal immigrant doctors, this justice hates freedom, they're gonna take all the guns, SECEDE~!, this is tyranny, biggest liberal in the history of the world, affront to Democracy, etc. It'll be the pinnacle of rational debate.

As to who Obama wants to replace him with, baseless speculation has centered on the fact that someone heard from some guy who heard from another who heard a rumor that Obama might have said he wanted 'more chicks' at dinner last night. Or 'more chicken'. Either way that definitely signals he wants a woman to preside, what with her special lady parts and judicially analyzing lady brain. All in all, it ought to provide a couple days of rampant meaningless speculation over a position that hasn't even been officially vacated or even publicly signaled that is was going to be vacated yet. In any event it will at least give us a few days distraction before the H1N1 Super Pig AIDS kills 99% of us, rendering man's law and thus the Supreme Court null and void.