Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

I watched the speech last night and came away convinced more than ever that we made the right choice in November.

Besides Obama's great ability to communicate complex economic issues in easily understandable terms, I got a kick out of how much of his speech was composed of subtle and not-so-subtle attacks on the opposition. He put Republicans in the position of having to choose to cheer against economic recovery, ending the war in Iraq and making sure CEOs pay their fair share.

When Obama mentioned the deficit and Republicans started catcalling he immediately pointed out that he would be tackling that "that deficit that I inherited." He put the jerks in their place.
Indeed- you could tell from Jindal's response to Obama's speech and the Republican talking points in response to the speech that they simply do not have a solution to Obama. If Republicans weren't being propped up by the Fourth Estate they would be completely irrelevant at this point.

Are we supposed to take a political party seriously when the biggest criticism they can level at the President's take on the state of the union is that the President lied when he said "The nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it." You guys can't see how ridiculous and petty that is? C'mon, really?

This isn't nitpicking, it's picking micro-organisms of nits themselves.

Putting aside the triteness of the "it was Karl Benz not Henry Ford who invented the automobile" line of argument, do you really want to put your political party in the position of advocating that it wasn't an American that built the auto industry, that the United States really isn't number one? That's a political winner.

If I didn't hate those knuckleheads so much I might actually feel sorry for their clueless asses.

But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals.

If you could help me out here I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm trying to decide which of these nasty Delta House dweebs I should put on Triple Secret Probation. Which of them do you think is most deserving of my Foot of Rghteousness?

A) Pope "Ratzy" Benedict who decided this week that it would be a good idea to un-excommunicate ("recommunicate?") the clergy of a right wing sect famous for holocaust denial. It occurs to me that when you've faced criticism for dabbling in the Hitler Youth as boy this might not be the best decision to make. What's next? Jackboots for the Swiss Guard?

B) J.J. "Mugato" Abrams who opted to ruin one of the suprises of his new "Star Trek" movie in spoiling the fact there will be a cameo by one of our little, furry buddies from the original show. He also chose to prove that he not only doesn't get Star Trek, but seems lost when it comes to the great movie "Galaxy Quest" as well when he told an interviewer that GQ "...completely mocks the paradigm in its entirety." Not exactly, J.J.

C) Barack "Hoops" Obama who called Wall Street bonuses "shameful" but to this point has acted as if he has no power to do anything about it. Tie any additonal TARP funds to the condition those executive bonuses are returned and for God's sakes nationalize those financial institutions. Their executives are morons. It's not like we couldn't put chimpanzees in those boardrooms with the same results.

I hate those guys.

Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid.

So much going on today!

Reporting from London -- If history records a sudden surge in carbon emissions on Wednesday, it may be due to the collective exhalation of relief and joy by the hundreds of millions -- perhaps billions -- of people around the globe who watched, waited and prayed for Barack Obama to be elected president of the United States.

Gordo goes down in flames. It's about time. There've been a number of letters to the editor of the local paper from Eastern Oregon whining that, if the state elects two Democratic Senators they won't be represented. To this I simply say "STFU and sit down." 1) If Gordon Smith had been a real Republican moderate in the mold of Bob Packwood or Tom McCall he would've been Senator for life and 2) In Texas over 2 million people voted for challenger Rick Noriega in his unsuccessful bid to defeat John Cornyn. Those 2 million people have no representation in the U.S. Senate by this weird logic.

As far as I'm concerned the far right has had more than enough representation in the nation's capital these last twenty years.

"Jurassic Park" author Michael Crichton is dead. I've enjoyed a lot of his earlier work but his recent cranky pseudo-scientific scepticism towards the concept of human activity contributing to global warming has caused me to question his greatness as a sci-fi writer.

Not to toot my own horn too much but in a fake article from the future I wrote back on October 10th I had this: A state-by-state breakdown of those returns gave the President-elect more than 345 electoral votes, a commanding victory in the Electoral College, which requires 270 for election. His victory included states such as North Carolina and Virginia given to choosing Republican candidates in the last several Presidential elections.

I should buy a lottery ticket.

Ubermilf and randal graves have posts that riff off of "Caddyshack" and "Animal House" respectively. I've seen that latter film a couple of times...

These four photos say everything about the election.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests.. we did

I'll be in North Carolina at a Dean's conference for about a week and doubt I'll be anywhere near a computer. No blog updates until I get back.

I'll be giving a speech on Saturday night entitled "Double Secret Probation: Discipline as the Key to Maintaining Order on Campus."

While I'm gone Greg Marmalard will in charge even though he's a sneaky little shit. You twerps behave yourselves or you'll be out of here like shit through a goose.

If fizzies are dropped on the swim meet or medical school cadavers delivered to the alumni dinner I'll know who to blame.

Oh, and keep Neidermeyer's horse out of my office. That thing has a bad heart.

Dean Vernon Wormer

Kroger, your Delta Tau Chi name is Pinto.

Karl Rove sighted the ubiquitous "leaving to spend time with my family" excuse for why he's resigning which is obviously not the truth. Others are speculating that it might have something to do with his legal troubles. That would seem the best possible explanation unless you happen to be the Dean of Faber College and have a former graduate/ mole on the inside at the White House and know otherwise. I am that Dean and have that mole.

My mole, let's call him "Neidermeyer" for now, is a sneak little shit that was able to obtain for this blog a copy of Rove's resignation letter. Below it is included in it's entirety.


Dear Big Kahuna,

It is with regret that I must inform you that I will be resigning the office of Deputy Director of Political Strategy effective August 31.

There are a number of factors in this decision. My duties serving in this office continue to stand in the way of my dream of joining the touring company of "Mama Mia." I would like to finish work on my cookbook tentatively titled "The Cannibal's Kitchen" and I'm not afraid to admit it after all these years but I'm in love with your wife. A Librarian that runs over and kills a former boyfriend is a secret fetish of mine. Every time I look at Laura: grroowwwlll.

I've enjoyed our many years together- whether we were laughing at the pleas of clemency from convicted murderers on death row back in Texas, hiding under the chairs together on 9/11 or helping you start a war for no good reason we always had fun. I will always cherish my time with you in the 2000 election when we watched Gore continually talk like he could actually win it and a fair count would prevail. As if.

I will forever be your Chunky Monkey, Bald Bomber and Turd Blossom.

Yours Truly,

Karl Rove

Don't talk to me like that, assface.

Via Alicublog I see that Reihan Salam has chosen to take my name in vain in his article on movies entitled "Snob vs. Snob." To whit:

So, why is Fletch such a failure? It could be that—like it or not—hipster liberalism just doesn't mesh well with screwball comedy. Animal House, the ur-text, pits the lovable ne'er-do-wells of Delta Tau Chi against the duplicitous and icily priggish Dean Wormer, and we know from the start whom we're rooting for. Or take the more recent smash hit Wedding Crashers, in which a pair of charming scoundrels square off against the privileged scion of a great American family. To the extent there's any political subtext here, you might think it's simple, straightforward egalitarianism: You can't let some two-bit tyrant ruin all your fun, and you can't let some J. Press preppie bastard get the girl.

"Icily priggish?" Bite me, Salam. If anything I'm warmly priggish. Just for that he's on double, secret detention.

Start with his reference to the movies mentioned as falling into the genre of "screwball comedy." Really? Most of the screwball comedies (such as the defining classic "It Happened One Night") share only the barest resemblance to "Fletch" and "Animal House." Screwball comedies have never been completely defined but the few things they do tend to have in common are rapid, witty banter, sex without sex, romance and weird situations (having to haul around a leopard for example.) "Animal House" is a great movie but a classic screwball comedy it ain't.

But that nitpicking pales by comparison when put in context of his broader and hugely ignorant take on the politics of these films.

As a movie, Fletch is all but unwatchably bad. But as a cultural artifact, it is invaluable. Reagan had just been re-elected by a landslide when the film hit theaters in 1985, and Fletch reflects, in a strange and roundabout way, an era of wrenching liberal despair. While the enlightened bourgeoisie and their scruffy spawn were no longer running the country, they could at least laugh along with Chevy Chase as he poked fun at Reagan's America—the nouveau riche, the pig-headed cops, the Mormons.

Get that? "Fletch" is a bad film because Chevy Chase is portraying a character that is typical liberal snob. "Fletch" appeals to the left because he spends so much time sneering at little people he runs into in the course of the film. Fletch is a limousine liberal writ large which is why liberals love him.

If "Fletch" represents liberalism then what would be a good example of a film on the other side of spectrum? What could embody the spirit of conservatism? Why "Animal House," of course.

But there's more than a passing resemblance between this narrative and classic right-wing populism. Like "Bluto" Blutarsky rallying his fraternity to ruin the homecoming parade, crafty conservatives have been riling up middle America for decades against champagne-sipping limousine liberals. The boys in Animal House aren't, say, fighting tooth and nail for a living-wage ordinance. These mostly privileged young men are fighting for their right to party—a libertarian cause if there ever was one. And consider that the villain in Wedding Crashers is a Kennedy clone, a cultured environmentalist who hides his woman-hating ways behind earnest platitudes.

The only thing Bluto had in common with modern conservatism is his complete and implacable stupidity. In the scene Salam mentions above Bluto rallies the Deltas by asking rhetorically "did the Americans give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" A line that would be right at home coming out of the mouth of our current President.

"Crafty conservatives?" Puhleeze. The Deltas were a motley assortment of everybody that didn't fit in with the establishment and the school administration that supported them. The Deltas were made up of jews, slobs, drunks and a cross section of Americana that was in no way rich, white and waspy. They weren't "privileged" they were middle class and poor. The Deltas were anything but conservatives. Has he even seen the damn film?

These films did have a libertarian streak but it wasn't "conservative libertarianism," whatever the hell that is. It was that element of libertarianism focused on the idea that if it isn't hurting anyone then it's none of the government's damned business. That idea is anathema to what most self-described conservatives would believe is culturally acceptable.

But in a broader sense all of these films are about the phrase from "Caddyshack" that Salam tries to milk for irony in his title to his article: the slobs vs. the snobs. "Animal House," "Caddyshack" and the lesser "Fletch" are nothing but an index finger to the establishment. The rich and powerful are the villains of all these movies. This is class warfare with the heroes being the not-so-well-to-do. Is there any question which political party Judge Smails would belong to? Or Dean Wormer for that matter?

These films were popular and resonated with the public because they stuck it to the guys with the stick up their butts. Salam may want to pretend differently, but then I would simply answer with my favorite quote from the genre:

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

The Otter Defense didn't work on me when he and the other Delta House degenerates were here at Farver and it certainly won't work when Tony Snow tries it.

Remain Calm. All is well!

Thank God the Bush administration has committed to not acting irresponsibly in Iraq:

"We're not going to sort of look at our watches and say, 'Oh, time to go,' because that would be irresponsible," Snow said, adding that Washington wants to make sure it has laid the foundation for a "successful, self-governing, peaceful and stable Iraq." - Reuters 5/23

They're going to make sure they have a plan for a peaceful Iraq. Nothing like waiting until the last minute.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.

Welcome to The Dean's Office. If you've had to come through my door you've then you've broken the rules. Perhaps you dumped a whole truck load of fizzies in the swim-meet. Perhaps you started a food-fight in the commons. Maybe you simply attended last night's toga fiasco at the Delta fraternity house. Whatever the crime, it goes without saying that you're a non-conformist and we here at Faber college don't like non-conformists. The purpose of this school is to shape young minds into machines of independent thought NOT to create rebels.

Before I dole out punishment for whatever the hell you've done let me just tell you about a young man at this school named Doug Neidermeyer. Doug's the Student Body President, President of the Honor Society, ROTC Officer and Rush Chair of the Omega House. Doug's an outstanding citizen and it's an honor to have him here at Faber.

Doug didn't get to be the fine young man he is today by initiating a midnight panty raid on sorority row. He didn't get there by squirting mashed potatoes out of his nose or having medical school cadavers delivered to the alumni dinner. He got to be that way by discipline. He got that way by hard work and the sweat of his brow. Not to mention a leg up from a rich, well-connected father who donates generously to this college.

As I look across my desk at you I have to say you are nothing like Doug, son. Not even close.

I'm putting you on double-secret probation.

Please tell Mrs. Johnson to hold my calls on the way out and... have a nice day.