I am not amused by Sorry Everybody.
No, my candidate didn’t win the election. No, I’m not happy that the next Supreme Court justices will likely be enemies of Roe versus Wade. No, I don’t think that attacking Iraq makes the U.S. safer.
But this is still a representative democracy, and I’m not apologizing for the fact that the best chimpanzee won.
Is France apologizing for having recently banned Muslim headscarves in classrooms?
Is Germany apologizing for having overburdened their economy with an ungainly system of social benefits?
Is Australia apologizing for Paul Hogan?
All countries have something to be ashamed of. It’s just that our shame is highly visible, highly destructive, and can’t form an English sentence to save his life. But he won the vote in a land that created the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons 1-5. America may be a lot of things, but we’re not Myanmar and we’re not the Ivory Coast.
Seriously, liberals, could you have any less pride?
I say this even though some of my little online friends are active participants in this travesty. Halsted, I love you because you write posts like this one, but this is not a good idea.
Liberals are already seen as tremendous weenies, and this isn’t helping. And it’s not like we have time to kill. We have four years to revisit our message, communicate it, and displace the idea that the reds have some sort of bizarre monopoly on the concept of moral values. But I’m apologizing for two things: Jack and Squat.
By 2008, I want the left wing to be seen as tough. I mean The Rock tough. Dick Cheney chewing on babies before the VP debate? Was that the commonly circulated joke? Screw that. We should all chew on babies. (Although my niece is off limits.) And we need to hold our ground, speak the truth, and be feared. If people are willing to swallow an oxymoron like compassionate conservatism, we can damn well serve up our own: kick-ass liberalism.
Now shut up and stop wasting webcam pixels on this nonsense. At the very least, use them for something more important and patriotic--like revenue-generating nudity.
I nibble on my baby a little every day. He’s got the most delicious chubby cheeks you’ve ever seen.
Well, Greg, you’ve managed to articulate a very good opening salvo in our next campaign, and if I were in charge of that kind of thing, I’d hire you in a New York minute.
I too have pals on sorryeverybody.com, which made me look on the exercise with a somewhat forgiving eye. But I can’t argue with your points here, though I do think Australia should write me a check for the whole Paul Hogan thing.
You did watch the West Wing, back when it was good, didn’t you? I personally stopped somewhere around the beginning of the fourth season (yes, even before Sorkin’s departure), but for a wild political fantasy, it was surprisingly muscular. And funny. Like you.
That’s funny--I was just watching a rerun of the season 2 ending ("You feckless thug") and thinking how much I used to love WW--although like you, I stopped watching even before Sorkin left because it got lame.
great post.
though i do hope there compassionate and conservative is not an eternal de facto oxymoron.
mind if i send this to everyone i know?
and btw i think WW has potential this season ... it’s at least gripping, so far (and that’s “gripping” in the dramatic sense, not in the “sales & marketing” sense ...).
I’m very tempted to apologise for Paul Hogan but looking back, it was probably All For The Best™. I don’t know if I can say the same about any of the other examples cited though.
OK -I’ll apologise for Paul Hogan- in particular Crocodile DundeeII...and speaking of Crocs, I’ll apologise for Steve Irwin too!
Didn’t Season 6 have the musical episode? For that reason I don’t think you should exclude Season 6.
And while your points are valid, I am highly amused by SorryEverybody.
But then I also remember being amused by the first Crocodile Dundee movie, so maybe I should just shout up.
Sorry Everybody.
Gwyneth Paltrow is liberal right? And Salma Hayek too? I could get behind this “revenue-generating” idea. Hurray for political posts!
He said, “I could get behind this revenue generating idea.”
This is going to have to go through phases, like when someone dies. First anger, then shame, then recrimination, then feckless thuggery, culminating in the use of nudity as a weapon (or “tool") in the fight for liberal values. We’ll have Salma and Michael Moore frontlining an all-star head-to-head matchup by the ‘06 races, I tell you what.
not only is that site pathetic and reinforcing of the weenie stereotype, but it’s the exact mirror of the closed-minded right-wing nutjob sites that drive liberals crazy. you can’t complain that bush doesn’t listen to anyone who disagrees with him and then, even after having lost an election, refuse to listen to anyone who disagrees with you.
i think bush is a shitbag as much as the next, but i’m also not so self-righteous as to apologize for him.
bother. why are the babies always being the ones eaten? let’s leave the babies out of this. they got enough going on with the pooping and crying. let’s eat puppies or bunnies next go around. ok? cb.
If we ate some of the bunnies, do you think the rest of them would be hopping mad?
It will always be Burma to me.
My boss commented on how the French are killing people in the Ivory Coast and no one is even paying attention.
The French terrorized Algeria for 20 years and got away with it, too. And chewing on your niece is off limits, but blowing raspberries on her belly button is allowed, for sure.
I have to say I agree. We need another Joe Kennedy to beat the crap out of Karl Rove and his evil crew...Kick-Ass Liberalism here we come!
I am with you on this. I suppose that I would be considered a liberal. I’m more about the kicking-ass part, come to think of it. We can do this.
No way. Not only was season 6 rubbish, so was season 5. In fact, season 4 wasn’t exactly all that.
And...yeah...what they said. Go Democracy...etc etc.
the english, belgians, germans, portuguese, spanish and japanese all *also* have long colonization histories, and hey, let’s examine the history of making, say, california, hawaii, alaska etc states in this fine union.
can part of the new tough left’s agenda be finding a target other than the hexagone harmonieuse? ‘cause honestly, the old evil right has francophobia (or misofrancomania, or whatever combination of prefixes and suffixes makes that a word about hating the french) covered.
merci.
Random thoughts: actually, I think Greg is approaching the age of 35, if he isn’t already there, which would make him eligible to run for President (I’m fairly certain he will be over 35 in 2008). If you think about this, he has a better chance than the current Governor of California (I seriously doubt we’re going to change the freakin’ Constitution to allow Der Governator to become President). And if President Howard hires Sorkin as his speechwriter, and Dirty Dan Sin as Chief of Staff . . .
Well then, first we’d get the budget balanced through revenue-enhancing nudity and getting Australia to write us a really big check . . .
GREG HOWARD IN 2008—SCREW COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM, HE’S A KICK-ASS LIBERAL.
Also: with Clinton/Gore and Bush/Cheney, the last two winning tickets were overstuffed with southerners. No more “balanced tickets.” And certainly no more candidates from states above the Mason/Dixon line. Actually, if we could just somehow make it a requirement of any Presidential candidate to have at least read Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, we’d be in better shape . . .
OK, we’ll play fair now. But Canada still totally has to apologise for Celine Dion.
Wait though. Let’s say you brought a friend to Denny’s after hours, and let’s say this friend was inebriated or perhaps retarded, and let’s say he started flinging the sugar everywhere, hucking his complimentary water at the clientele, spit coffee on the windows, tagged the table and pantsed the busboy-- wouldn’t you at the very least feel obligated to apologize to the waitress? I think “Sorry Everybody” comes from the same impulse. It’s just common decency. I’m for it.
Um, well, you might briefly apologize to the waitress--verbally. As I will do the next time I run into some bleeding, half-starved Iraqi child. But would you take the time to go home, set up a web site, and take pictures of yourself for that waitress, rather than immediately take your friend into counseling and help him understand the error of his ways? Which is a better use of time?
Greg- that is so great that you are going to take Bush in for counseling. If you feel the need to stage an intervention first, I’ll help you set it up. Just let me know ahead of time so I can get the day off from work.
Next time you run into some bleeding, half-starved-- ?!? You might want to reconfigure your jogging path. Meanwhile, I agree; such a website would only further unnerve the waitress.
Found your post via of the Hammonds. I have been to the website you posted about. Its actually kind of silly, lol. I have to wonder though, did ALL of those people who are “so sorry” even go out and vote? If so, I cannot imagine how Kerry lost. Hey, have a great Thanksgiving! Uh, for the record, I am NOT in any way related to the “Donovan” who posted. I am a Donovan too, but not from that stream, lol.