This morning features fun and merriment with NPR's White House twins, Don Gonyea and David Greene, presided over by Andrea Seabrook as the breathless (you can literally hear her gasping in astonishment) host.Seabrook opens the party with: "TWO...THOUSAND...AND...SIX – when this year began the White House was in an optimistic mood. Millions of Iraqis had just voted...there was hope that would lead to other progress in the war, maybe even bringing large numbers of American troops home this year..."
Well yes, if you were a gullible, uninformed knucklehead you believed this "optimistic" outlook. But those of us in the reality-based community (Cursor, Common Dreams, Informed Comment, etc.) knew there were no corners being turned, only an endless downward spiral.
Seabrook continues, "The White House also saw the beginning of 2006 as a chance for a fresh start after all the criticism following the federal response to hurricane Katrina the previous fall...." Ah yes, "all the criticism," not to be confused with the easily documented facts of criminal negligence and incompetence of Bush and Co. regarding Katrina.
The tragicomic part of the sequence comes when Seabrook asks Donnie and Davie about their standout moments from the past year. David Greene talks about his attendance on the Bush "stealth trip" to Iraq. He says he was "literally being kidnapped to Iraq on very short notice" and "it was something out of a spy movie." Seabrook keeps gasping and can be hear saying "Oh wow!" When he is done she exclaims, "That is totally wild! Ok Don, can you top that?" Don then recounts the crazy thrills of visiting Graceland with Bush and the Japanese Prime Minister and says "my favorite thing about that day...was how uncomfortable President Bush looked."
There was something horridly unseemly about all this jocularity regarding our miserable little failure of a President who is prone to strutting, lying and warnography. Nothing about his murderous disaster of Iraq or his many other failures throughout the year. Just amazement at being able to serve the naked emperor or as Seabrook says at the end, "That’s the thing about you guys, I mean you cover the executive branch, but you also cover THE GUY, I mean the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!"
4 comments:
Oh my aching...
Right now I'm struggling with a dilemma: will I actually listen to this piece?
I cannot say as yet.
Andy Seabrook! My goodness! I knew she'd be good for ratings. That NPR sure has its audience pegged! Stodgy old Lian's 'sabbatical' might have to be extended, or be made Bob Edwards-permanent. I can imagine some NPR editor saying:'Oh gosh, Andy, how you brighten up Sunday mornings!'
One thing that's also improved: ever since he started covering the Guy, Don Gonorrhea's horrible pause-filler attacks (uh, uh, annnnd, uh, uh, uh, etc.) have all but ceased. Our Don's growing up!
Andy's going to take a little longer...
It's hard not to be snide.
So I won't be. I just listened to the segment. I can't 'top' Mytwords' analysis, so I won't try.
I'd like to invoke though, only for the sake of irony, Don Rumsfeld's tone of voice when he responded to a tonguelashing by Sen. Hillary Clinton: 'My goodness...' His tone had so much disgust in it that he needn't have proceeded in spouting more twaddle.
So, why throw good twaddle after bad? All I can further say, as I shake my head, is that Andy, Donnie and Davy are the types I avoid at parties. They're just too difficult to deal with. The kids listening in the radio audience will love that segment, though! Go, NPR for Kids!
I really wanted Andrea to say "Gag me with a spoon!" because at that moment I would have done precisely that.
I was struck by the end of DG's story, where Bush was made uncomfortable by, and then ridiculed the Japanese PM's singing of Elvis. The "reporters" had a chuckle about the PM "getting a little too into it" and showed their(and Bush's) ignorance of and disrespect for Japanese culture. It's a place where everyone is expected to sing and most people could probably belt out an Elvis song, unlike here where singing is embarassing to people.
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