This is a beaut:
If Jay Leno Wants Better Reviews He Can Start By Removing the Lapel Flag by John Nolte
You want to be edgy in the entertainment business today? Be polite and keep the politics as across the board as possible. Walk on stage with the “edgy” goal of wanting to entertain and take away from their daily frustrations as many people as possible.
Jay Leno’s the new edgy, the new ballsy…
And that lapel flag makes him a downright iconoclast.
I didn’t see his show, but I’m pulling for him because all the right people are not.
If John Nolte is so concerned with Leno’s ratings, maybe he should quit wanking about lapel pins and start watching.
Are there any history majors out there who can tell me if there ever was a time that one of the major political parties was so concerned with something as trivial as lapel pins? This has been an ongoing obsession of the wingnut crowd for several years now, and it is just downright bizarre.
Brien Jackson
Meh, it’s just a new direction for the fascistic impulses. At least it’s getting more obviously absurd.
ploeg
It’s not so much of an obsession that it kept them from voting for John McCain (who didn’t wear a lapel pin during the debates, as opposed to Barack Obama, who did).
Ann B. Nonymous
They imprinted on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where the leftist millionaire chooses the wrong cup to drink from and all that’s left after he disintegrates is his George Soros lapel pin?
SGEW
“Freedom fries.” How soon we forget.
Morbo
Being behind in the fashion trends does not an iconoclast make. And I wouldn’t call the flag just a fashion trend if not for the fact that even the Republicans stopped wearing them for EVERY public appearance at least three years ago.
Hunter Gathers
Apparently there is some sort of True Patriot Dress Code now (must be hidden in the Patriot Act, methinks), and anyone without the proper attire will sent home to change into proper patriotic clothing. Sounds like the catholic school I went to.
The Grand Panjandrum
The flag pin fetish is odd. Looking through the video and photos of the several billion people at the Great Patriotic March Against Everything Obama I noticed a lot of flag shirts, pants, jackets etc. Maybe a group of DFH’s could go to these rallies and hand out copies of the Flag Code.
But those are things that seem to escape the fauxtrage because the wearers of said articles of flag festishism have “good intentions”. Awesome.
Bill E Pilgrim
The only thing I can think of is hair.
Back in the day. Which is why they wrote the play about it.
Any of us alive and kicking back then remember it being mostly baffling why it had become such a big deal. To me long hair it was a style, a fashion, something I thought was cool and made me popular among certain people. To others it was clearly some massive political statement, you’d walk into some goddamn cafeteria and have people staring, sneering, it was amazing. Two friends of mine were attacked and almost killed, hitchhiking through California in the Valley, the traditional part, and it was made clear that that was why.
The right seemed obsessed with it. Far more than we were. Obsessed, truly.
Bill E Pilgrim
@SGEW: Freedom fries in the fires of Wingnut hate.
Tim F.
Bitch slap. Every time Republicans force other people to change what they do, the other person looks like a loser.
Perpetual outrage is smart tactics. That it makes one look like a whining asshole matters not at all as long as the other person benefits even less.
robertdsc
IIRC, it’s a Nazi pin that is left behind. ZOMG, Jonah Goldberg was right!
Ash Can
I couldn’t even tell WTF Nolte was talking about.
MattF
It’s a fetish. Or a paraphilia if you prefer the Latin version.
Tom65
There you have the entire modern conservative movement in a nutshell.
4tehlulz
Nick Nolte would have made a more-coherent argument.
JenJen
Speaking of wingnuts, oh lawd, Jimmy Carter sure did get under Joe Scarborough’s skin. Joe won’t stop whining about it… and to further dumb down Joe’s racial musings, Maria Bartiromo is a guest this morning!
Joe, Mika and Maria. It really doesn’t get any stupider, folks.
mai naem
I don’t know why I watch the show but Maria Bartiromo just lied lied lied on Morning Joe. Maria of the “Why aren’t you on Medicare” question to 45 yr old Anthony Weiner just said that she wasn’t talking about medicare. That she was talking about why Weiner wouldn’t go into a public option. These media people are shameless. Nobody even called her out on the lie. They didn’t even replay the clip.
Leelee for Obama
@4tehlulz: Drunk and in jail, Nick was more coherent!
There are times when I just want to spit nails at these dipshits.
Watching Wash Journal today, because I can’t stand anything else.. Guy from Louisiana on health care: The slave class from early days did not get, or deserve, health care. Death is the poor man’s doctor. Work them till they can’t work any more, then let them die. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I shit you not. I’m stunned and I got nothin’!
Seonachan
One of the major issues during the 1988 campaign was The Pledge of Allegiance. This is nothing new.
geg6
@Leelee for Obama:
Seriously? This guy said this? Or are you paraphrasing with a bit of snark?
If he said it, unfuckingbelievable.
liberal
@SGEW:
Strangely enough, though, the author of that phrase turned against the Iraq war.
Leelee for Obama
@geg6: That’s as close to verbatim as I can get. It’s not a paraphrase-I re-ran it, so I could listen again, cause I thought I mis-heard him! Truthfully, I was so stunned I thought I was a little too drowsy for politics.
joe from Lowell
Conservatism and comedy have troubled relationship. Remember the Half-Hour News Hour?
Conservatives seem to think that comedy is meant to be judged by its political flavor, and the job of the audience is to grimly bark “Ha ha ha!” in unison when someone says something that affirms their politics.
The concept of “funny” just doesn’t seem to enter into it at all.
ed
Re-read J-Nolt’s piece of crap review, specifically the moneyshot:
then check out Jon Swift’s book reviews. Example:
Between Nolte and Swift, one is not an intentional parody. But which one? Can you tell?
Tom
At what point to people stop linking to hard-ons like this? I mean, I enjoy watching a good car wreck as much as anyone, but it’s becoming clear that the MO of writing on the Internet is to say something that will get people riled up so they either strongly agree or mock.
I mean, when this guy comes out and says Letterman is MSM’s bitch, I mean, he’s just looking for a reaction. I think the best thing to do with Big Hollywood is to shut the closet and leave them to their own private wankfest.
Leelee for Obama
@Leelee for Obama: geg-if HE was snarking, it wasn’t at all obvious. I really am gob-smacked.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Tim F.: I had forgotten about that particular reasoning. But that does seem to be the only thing left in the wingnut playbook.
kay
@joe from Lowell:
They do have trouble with comedy.
I think it’s because “funny” has to be both 1. true (to some extent) and 2. new or original take
Problem areas, to be sure.
Self-deprecating doesn’t hurt either, to take any mean-spirited edge off, and they’re absolutely incapable of that.
valdivia
totally OT but this is really a must read on Beck and his inspiration. From Salon.
U.G.
This whole flag lapel thing is so VERY Soviet…
JenJen
@mai naem: Bartiromo drives me absolutely nuts. Did you ever see Matt Taibbi’s blog about her, after she made the Medicare comment to Weiner? Good stuff…
gonzone
Which flag on a lapel is it that will please our right wing bloggers?
Would the stars and bars be more acceptable?
Or perhaps the swastika?
And why doe he hate our country?
Seems I remember a recent time when one was not dressed properly for public without a flag lapel pin according to our right wingers.
Rob in Denver
It’s gotta be a joke. I’ve been in hysterics since I read: “Jay Leno’s the new edgy, the new ballsy…”
Nim, ham hock of liberty
More evidence that conservative “ideology” these days has basically devolved into “we’re for whatever [we think] will piss off the libruls.”
Col. Klink
“A pledge pin! On your uniform!”
Jim Pharo
Who else remembers the centerpiece of George H. W. Bush’s campaign in 1992? That’s right: it was a Constitutional amendment to outlaw flag burning.
Not health care, not education, not jobs, not crime. Outlawing flag burning.
They’ve never, ever been serious.
jibeaux
@ed:
Swift came up with an enduringly funny hook by making sure all of his book reviews include “I have not actually read this book.” For some reason it stays funny no matter how many times I read it.
dmsilev
Always the victim. And wait, Fred Thompson trashed Christians and Republicans for a living?
-dms
bellatrys
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Bill, i was just going to say that – I wasn’t alive then, but I heard the stories like yours & I saw how it was *maintained* as An Enormous Issue among the Kulturkampfers through the 80s. Still seems to be something of one, in fact, including marking the change to hard wingnuttery among my family from the previously centerrific.
I suspect it has something to do with long hair being equated with The Feminine, ponytails on Founding Fathers be d–d!
The other endless petty obsession over dress on the Right, is, of course, with female clothing aka “modesty” – but this has been nonstop since, well, history began recording, so it’s background noise to most of us. But they were still screeching about trousers, let alone mini-skirts, in the late 1970s, and now it’s sleeveless dresses and shorts, at least on Democrats…
LD50
American conservatism, in common with rightwing/authoritarian movements everywhere, has [i]always[/i] been obsessed with conformity and symbols.
BR
Leelee:
Do you know around what time the Louisiana absurdity was on Wash. Journal today? (And was it a caller or was it a guest?) I wanted to pass it along.
MattM
I used to read this idiot every day over at Libertas.
Giving up my John Nolte addiction was one of the healthiest decisions I’ve made in a while.
JenJen
@Col. Klink:
FTW!
El Cid
I think Obama should start wearing a Confederate flag lapel pin just to fuck with ’em.
geg6
@Leelee for Obama:
Wow. Just…wow. The masks certainly are being peeled off at an alarming rate, aren’t they?
Leelee for Obama
@BR</It was close to the end of the first hour, I’m pretty sure, and it was a caller from Louisiana. He spoke on two issues, one was Afghanistan and the poppy crops and amount of growth of poppy going up 4000% after we went in. Then, the health care piece.
Leelee for Obama
@BR: Lost the post! It was at the end of the first hour, I’m pretty sure. He spoke about two things. One was poppy growth going up 4000% in Afghanistan after we went in, and then, the health care thing.
Leelee for Obama
@BR: Sorry, forgot to say, it was a caller, not a guest.
Craig
“further the leftist agenda through the brutal use of humiliation to target any public figure”
Letterman attacks the rich and powerful. Leno’s most famous bits are about how ordinary Americans are stupid. Of course your average wingnut is going to defend Jay and attack Dave.
Stefan
Are there any history majors out there who can tell me if there ever was a time that one of the major political parties was so concerned with something as trivial as lapel pins?
Well, the Italians Fascists, the Nazis and the Soviet Communists were all very big on pins, gewgaws, armbands, and other brightly colored symbols of loudly trumpeted ueber-patriotism……
Leelee for Obama
@geg6: I actually felt a little nauseous over this. It was sort of like getting trapped in the beginning of “A Christmas Carol”. “If they be like to die, let them do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
It was almost like a personal slap in the face. Maybe I’m getting to sensitive?
SpotWeld
So.. this is because Michael Moore is on his show tonight?
Jeezum Crow
@SGEW:
A fine example. For older ones, see “Liberty cabbage.” Also, hot dogs.
Plus, all kinds of crazy shit during the McCarthy years, including adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegience in order to root the Godless commies out of our public schools.
JK
John Nolte sounds as clueless and obnoxious as blowhard Andrew Breitbart.
@Craig
I’ve been a fan of Jay Leno and I wish him luck with his new show. I’m also a fan of David Letterman. I don’t what Jay Leno’s politics are. I think he’s gone after Republicans as much as he’s gone after Democrats.
This flag pin obsession is totally out of control.
Maria Bartiromo is dumber than dirt.
Bill E Pilgrim
@bellatrys:
I wasn’t alive then, but I heard the stories like yours
Thanks, I already definitely felt old writing that ;)
Course, back in 06 everyone was obsessed with tie pins, though we didn’t call them tie pins back then, we called them “pie tins”. “Gimme two pie tins for my boutonniere”, we’d say, cause that was the styyyyle in those days. If your date couldn’t guess how many pie tins you had in your pocket, you got to spin her around the dance floor until she vomited. Those were the rules.
Napoleon
@Craig:
I recall reading something at one point that made me think in fact Leno is a Dem.
Brain Hertz
@ JenJen:
By the way, Bartiromo was wrong about the chemotherapy treatment Erbitux not being approved in the UK (her original argument, referenced in Taibbi’s piece).
It was initially rejected, but the agency that is responsible for such approvals subsequently did approve it for some protocols in which it had been demonstrated effecive, but only after they managed to get Merck to agree to drop their pricing by 16%:
europharmatoday.com/2009/06/dollars-sense-economic-analysis-helps-erbitux-win-nice-ok-for-colorectal…
Amazing how that works…
cb720
If Nielsen isn’t tracking lapel pin preferences, it only proves that Nielsen is run by commies. Thank God my tin hat keeps Nielsen from finding out what shows I’m watching.
Napoleon
@Brain Hertz:
Brian,
I think you need to be cleared because you are doing what the right does on this issue, conflate the availability of the drug with the willingness of National Health to pay for the treatment.
The drug is and has been available and there is nothing stopping anyone from using it in Britian, or, as is my understanding, payment for the drug by the patient or private insurance that a British citizen can purchase similar to Medigap in the US. So for that very reason alone Bartiromo was full of it.
The question is would the cost of it be picked up by National Health.
Svensker
The whole tie pin-you-can’t-mess-with-the-flag-but-we-can thing is just tribal. And that’s all the Repubs are any more is a tribe. (An uneducated, ignorant, xenophobic tribe, which makes it worse.) As long as someone is a member of the tribe, he or she can do no wrong. The outsider can be ridiculed, bullied, mocked and, if necessary, killed, without anyone in the tribe being upset about it.
That’s all we’re seeing.
I do think some of the racism we’re seeing against Obama isn’t even purely racism. He is just so CLEARLY outside the tribe (he’s not only black, but he’s a highly articulate black with a funny name) that his Otherness is too overwhelming. Their tribal brains just can’t handle it.
Da Bomb
Minored in History and Political Science.
Never heard of anything of the sort. Closest era that focused on being American and pride thereof would be the McCarthy Era.
There was this fight and pride for the Confederate Flag during the early 20th century. But that was more of a form of protest against social integration.
So now I believe wearing a flag lapel pin could be a new fangled symbol of proving that ” we are more American than you are” or that “We are the real Americans”. It’s a little disingenuos at best.
Xanthippas
Wow. So the fact that someone is wearing a flag pin is now reason enough to attack the left?
Brain Hertz
@ Napoleon,
No, I’m not conflating the two – read the article I linked.
Yes, they will pay for it. That’s what NICE does; they approve what the NHS will pay for. It’s never been a question as to whether you could have it if you paid for it yourself.
WingNutz
@Xanthippas: It completes the circle. It’s never actually about what it’s supposedly about.
rh
I’m not a fan of Jay Leno at all, but he’s definitely a liberal Democrat and he even talked about having once regularly read Mother Jones in some interview.
JenJen
@Brain Hertz: Right. And that still didn’t stop her from reiterating the same flawed argument in her now-infamous appearance with Rep. Weiner.
A friend of mine recently commented about Bartiromo: “Listen to Miss Brooklyn! You know, I’ll bet in 1986 she had some big-ass hair and a boyfriend with an IROC.”
And so, when I see her now, that’s all I can think of. Trust me, it helps! :-)
Original Lee
I’d rather having the whining about trivialities than this:
1920: Wall Street Bombed
A wagon full of dynamite exploded today destroying the J.P. Morgan bank in downtown New York city and killing 36 people. The wagon contained 100 pounds of dynamite and over 500 pounds of iron slugs, which were propelled through the air at high speed by the explosion.
“‘There is absolutely no doubt that it was a bomb,’ said Chief Flynn. ‘An important development in the last two hours has convinced us of this. The bomb was apparently placed by a person who was within four blocks of Wall and Broad streets, when the explosion occurred,’” reported The Des Moines Capital on September 17, 1920.
NOTE: The bomb was believed to be planted by anarchists, but no one was apprehended in the investigation. The case was eventually closed.
Bill E Pilgrim
@JenJen: 1986??
theinsanityreport.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/meetthepressqbwuhadc5cxl.jpg
Ash Can
@Leelee for Obama: No, you’re not too sensitive. Dehumanization should never, ever be tolerated. Once dehumanization takes place, people start getting murdered, and the entire society in which it’s taking place is put on a slippery slope to ruin.
Leelee for Obama
@Ash Can: Thanks, Ash. I’m still kind of down about this thing-I don’t even know what I would’ve said to his face, if that were possible. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I know there are lots of really sociopathic thinkers out there, but this one really felt like an attack on my family.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Reminds me of the cautionary tale written by certain Mr. Swift about two groups who hated each other based on little more than a controversy over which end of a boiled egg should be cracked first before peeling and eating it.
Stefan
Personally, whenever I see some jerk with a flag lapel pin (not too often, since I live in NY) I motion to the pin and say “hey, you’re an American! Wow!” Confuses the hell out of ’em.
Stefan
But of course when I travel overseas I always make sure to wear a Canadian flag pin. In case of hijacking, you know. Can’t be too careful…..
Maus
Hahaha, I knew it was from Breitbart before I checked the link.
Is there a single piece of media he doesn’t think would be improved by God, the US Army, flags, or a caricature of Muslims as bloodthirsty savages? Does the man every support art that doesn’t involve tits and explosions (for Jesus and ‘merkuh)?
Craig
@JK:
Personally, I’m not a fan of Leno. If you like him, that’s fine. For my money, his Jaywalking bit is one of the nastiest, most unpleasant things you can find on network television, which is weird from a comic who was (once upon a time) famous for being a nice guy. For me, his own personal politics are beside the point – it doesn’t take a huge leap for those who watch him to go from “ordinary people are stupid” (as Jay shows them every week) to “it’s the poor who are responsible for the economic crisis” (for allowing those predatory lenders to prey on them in the first place).
Dr. Squid
I always thought the flag pin fetish would make for an obvious comedy sketch…
Scene: Some weekday cable shoutfest.
Each guest in a segment wears progressively larger lapel pins. The fourth guy’s pin is so large it covers most of his face. Host complains that he can’t hear or see the guy because of his flag pin, and the guy responds by asking why the host hates America for wanting to get rid of the flag.
Hey, the details are for the professionals to flesh out. I’m just an idea guy.
Ginger Yellow
Tim F has it exactly right. It’s all about showing who’s the boss. If they can have people cowering in fear at them over something as stupid as a bloody pin, then don’t dare cross them over something important.
Shade Tail
Still on the flag pin crap, eh?
Well, as Bill Maher once pointed out, the GOP is the home of Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, and countless other closeted homosexuals. As such, their fixation on jewelry is understandable.
Brachiator
@Craig:
Actually, Leno makes a very good point with his “Jaywalking” segments. It’s not that ordinary people are stupid. It’s that too many ordinary people are willfully ignorant. And ignorance, which is easily curable, fatally undermines a democracy.
One of my co-workers had a boyfriend, in his late 20s, who was proud of the fact that he had never read a novel in his life. In high school and college he had coasted by using Cliff Notes. But he could tell you the names of all the Smurfs. He voted for Bush because he was obviously a good guy, and later for McCain because he was a war hero. You know, like the movie, “Top Gun.” This was the beginning and end of this guy’s concern about political issues.
The Cold War seemed to ramp this stuff up. As others have noted, the Pledge of Allegiance was the line in the sand for some. Loyalty oaths were also used to separate the pure at heart from the godless Commie.
Paul_D
When you claim to have a finger on the pulse of Liburl Hollywood while having only one credit on your IMDB listing, it’s a hell of lot easier to direct your outrage at a chosen enemy rather than take responsibility for your own failings.
It emboldens Nolte while the rest of humanity looks on and says “what a whiny little bitch.”.
JenJen
@Bill E Pilgrim: It is because of you, and those like you, that I love this place so much. :-) So much awesomeness!
BombIranForChrist
I think a dude should append a puppy’s head to his lapel. That’s pretty edgy.
daryljfontaine
@Bill E Pilgrim: Now, my story begins in nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say “dickety” because the Kaiser had stolen our word “twenty.”
D
Little Dreamer
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Sorry, these people will never figure it out. They’re of the same mindset as those crazy lunatics who knelt crying and hanging onto a statue in Alabama when the Ten Commandments statue was threatened and no one realized that written right on that statue was a warning about not making idols or bowing down to worship idols. The people we’re considering here are truly idiots of the first magnitude.
bago
@valdivia: Jesus Christ. I know crazy, and I know Mount Vernon Crazy. I grew up there. However, the mormon bircher stuff raises my threat level to Jesus Tits level. Pick your own color.
Karen
Rush Limbaugh is going to fill in for Jay Leno one day next week.
I think that says it all, don’t you?