Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

When I was faster i was always behind.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

White supremacy is terrorism.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / This is the Genius I Was Looking For

This is the Genius I Was Looking For

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While I was licking Bush’s scrotum in 2003, the Poorman was writing things like this:

While watching FOX News Sunday this morning, and seeing Brit Hume finally call William Kristol out as the pinko Americaphobic Saddam-smoocher he is for daring to suggest that the complete absence of WMD in Iraq means that the doctrine of Bushian Infallibility may need to be called in to question, I was struck with new-found respect for the man’s journalistic courage and integrity. And I thought to myself, have I been unfair to Mr. Hume in my writing? Specifically, have I moved beyond the factual truth in my descriptions of Brit’s large, oddly-shaped, sickly-complexioned head (which I recently compared in conversation to a demented planetoid papered with chicken skin, a comparison I now regret.) As many in the liberal media are now offering up public apologies for distorting the truth in service of their dastardly political aims, I thought that I should follow suit and review my coverage of Brit Hume’s big bean, and make sure that I have been, at all times, Fair and Balanced.

1) January, 2003: In a post which I subsequently removed, I refer to Mr. Hume’s head as “a bloated, malformed astronomical anomaly, which draws viewers into its powerful gravitational field of pure evil.” This is absolutely false. There is no credible scientific data that Brit Hume’s head generates a gravitational field that is significant in astronomical terms, as this has been verified to great precision by looking for tell-tale differences in the Earth’s motion around the Sun when Mr. Hume is in the New York and Washington studios. I was perfectly aware of this at the time I wrote it, and, although I did take the post down, I was never disciplined for making this outrageous charge. It is probably this initial laxness which led to all subsequent abuses.

2) March 4, 2003: I compare Mr. Hume’s head to a “Frankenstein melon.” This is indisputably fair.

3) April 11, 2003: I call Mr. Hume’s head “tenebrous”, and state further that it is “enormous, misshapen, [and] fungoid.” I received much criticism for using the word “enormous”, with several pundits pointing out that countless animals, from the mighty T. Rex to the Blue Whale, have heads which dwarf Mr. Hume’s, and that many people, for example Goliath and the 50′ Tall Woman, have had heads of equal or greater volume as well. While I concede that this is true, I maintain that a head may still be “enormous” even if it is not the biggest head in history, provided it is significantly larger than the heads of most examples of that species. To this, my critics responded with archeological evidence pointing out that Mr. Hume was in fact not of our species at all, but had evolved from a primitive cousin of Homo Sapiens known as Homo Pompousius Cranius Giganticus, and that my comments were therefore speciesist and offensive. I think the evidence here is inconclusive; nonetheless, I should have tried to avoid using words as charged and polarizing as “enormous”. Alas, I did not.

4) April 17, 2003: I note that his head reminds me of “frame seven of the Nazi head-melting scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.” Completely true. It does remind me of that, particularly when that frame is projected onto a five-story tall screen. Also, I noted that Tony Snow’s head was “this enormous, bobbing, rectangular monument sprouting up out of his neck.” Again, the word “enormous” was pure editorial, and should have been removed.

5) June 2, 2003: The low point. I remark that Mr. Hume has a “galaxy-sized rotten pumpkin wrinkle head”, that it is “very large and unpleasant”, and that it is “too frightening for children under the age of 107”. This is outrageous slander. Brit Hume’s head is far smaller than any galaxy, or indeed any star in any galaxy. This can be shown simply by watching FOX News, and noting that his head fits completely within the confines of the FOX studio! This charge was completely outrageous and had no basis in fact. Also, I reported that Tony Snow had been giggling into his Trapper Keeper while interviewing the object of his school-girl crush, General Tommy Franks. This was also false: he was clearly attempting to muffle his nervous laughter with a sticker album. I was excoriated by the media for both of these mistakes, and rightly so.

But acknowledging that mistakes have been made is not enough – I must also take positive action to ensure that such carelessness never happens again. As managing editor of The Poor Man, I hereby inform you that I have fired myself, and I will have no input in any future posts in this web page. From now on, all writing and editorial duties will be performed by a completely different person who has the same name as me. I know that none of this can undo the damage that I have done to the reputation of this web page, but I hope that, with time, you will come to trust it once again. And I would also like to extend my personal apologies to Brit Hume, firstly for the hurtful statements I made, but also for not understanding how hard it is to find a few thousand tons of nerve gas hidden in a country far, far larger than his head. The truth will, no doubt, soon be revealed.

My mistake was misremembering all of this as being about Russert, rather than Hume. I still think this is one of the funniest posts to ever appear on a blog. And remember, the context was editorial apologies for being COMPLETELY FUCKING WRONG about the WMD in Iraq.

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  3. 3.

    Dave Latchaw

    Adverse times can bring out one’s best. It was a Golden Age of Snark. I have no desire to see another Golden Age, however.

  4. 4.

    David Koch

    While I was licking Bush’s scrotum in 2003

    this is gonna make glen jealous.

  5. 5.

    David Koch

    @Dave Latchaw:

    I have no desire to see another Golden Age

    haven’t you heard, Black Metrosexual Abe Lincoln is worse than bush and pol pot. Even hitler and pol pot didn’t use computer worms.

  6. 6.

    Both Sides Do It

    I just hope Cole didn’t have to follow through on his statement that he’d kill someone to get the post.

    . . .

    Alright I don’t really care. Poorman’s the best.

  7. 7.

    Fred Fnord

    I will admit, that’s pretty good. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Matt Tabbi’s complete dismantling of ‘The World is Flat’, and Friedman in general.

    Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I’ll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. …
    Here’s what he says:
    “I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.”
    Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.
    This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. … He has an anti-ear, and it’s absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that’s guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    While I was licking Bush’s scrotum in 2003

    That may explain the blue funk period now ongoing.

    PTSD.

    Post Tonguing Scrotum Depression.

    Or not.

  10. 10.

    Martin

    See, this is why we’re Democrats. We’ve just got better people on this side.

    @Fred Fnord: Case in point. That Taibbi piece kills me every time I read it.

  11. 11.

    Citizen_X

    William Kristol…daring to suggest that the complete absence of WMD in Iraq means that the doctrine of Bushian Infallibility may need to be called in to question

    Did this actually ever happen? Or did Kristol immediately and fervently apologize and reaffirm his commitment to the tenets of Bushism-Cheneyism?

  12. 12.

    J. Michael Neal

    I just found the soundtrack for Runaway Train on Amazon. I’ve been trying to find this for years. I haven’t looked terribly recently, because it had always been so futile.

    The performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major alone is worth the $15 bucks it cost me. The rest of it is pretty awesome, too.

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    @David Koch: Have you ever considered shocking the world by not being an unfunny dick and a breitbart-level douchebag, just for say 24 hours? Or are you afraid the effort would cause permanent injury?

  15. 15.

    joel hanes

    @Both Sides Do It:

    Unfortunately, Poorman was the best.

    The last post on that site was Sept 2010;
    and the last few months of posts were by curv3ball,
    taking over for Sifu Tweety,
    who in turn had been trying manfully for many months to fill the shoes of The (long-lost) Editors.

    I’ll know it’s the Last Days when Fafnir or The Medium Lobster, Billmon, The Editors, and Maxspeak once again find it necessary to take up the keyboard, and Hilzoy writes a front page post on Obsidian Wings.

    I’m figuring about one month of a Romney Presidency should do the trick.

  16. 16.

    David Koch

    @Martin:

    We’ve just got better people on this side.

    I don’t know about that. Sadly Barney Frank is turning into Lieberman.

    He just went all sanctimonious and denounced the recall effort:

    ‘I think the people on the Democratic side made a big mistake and the funding thing was a big deal,’ Frank told The Hill Wednesday afternoon, alluding to Republicans’ big cash advantage in the race. ‘My side picked a fight they shouldn’t have picked. The recall was upsetting to people, the rerun of the election with Tom Barrett — it’s not a fight I would have picked.’

    This on top of his recent revelation that he pleaded with Obama not to do healthcare. Ya know, at least Libermann was up front with his opposition to healthcare, which is better than surreptitiously trying to sink it in the shadows like even the liburel Barney.

  17. 17.

    David Koch

    @Anne Laurie: See, this is why I won’t vote for Elizabeth Warren, it’s people like you. Vote for Marisa DeFranco (a real Democrat) Massachusetts.

  21. 21.

    cat48

    I thought the NetRoots said NN would be different this year; more positive. Boston Globe reports:

    PROVIDENCE, R.I.—They are trying to be hopeful, but the Democratic Party’s most passionate voters are struggling to hide their frustration with President Barack Obama.
    Republicans attack the president as a big-government liberal. Many liberals meeting Thursday at Netroots Nation — it describes the annual convention as “a giant family reunion for the left” — argue instead that Obama hasn’t fought hard enough for progressive priorities on taxes, health care and the economy.
    Even more problematic for the president: With the election just five months away, some are threatening not to donate money or time or even vote in November for the man who overwhelmingly ignited their passions and captured their imaginations four years ago.

    Metrosexual Black AbeJ & MisterMix have some explaining to do.

  25. 25.

    Uriel

    @Anne Laurie:

    Have you ever considered shocking the world by not being an unfunny dick and a breitbart-level douchebag, just for say 24 hours?

    And so we end this weeks installment of “The Pot and the Kettle”

    Tune in for next weeks episode, wherein we find Ms. Laurie condemning some right wing nebbish for attacking Dems she likes using poorly warmed-over talking points from the 2008 elections, followed by the lovely Anne attacking the president using stale, puma proven talking points from the 2008 election cycle.

    Probably through the medium of a typically shitty, intentionally un-nuanced and amateurish cartoon by Ted Rall. Because- deliberately obtuse? Well, that’s just just how she rolls.

  26. 26.

    harlana

    @AxelFoley: to be fair, lots of people were licking Bush’s scrotum as well as other, erhm, body parts and/or orifices, back in the day

    so you have to get in the Way Back Time Machine to get to 2003,that makes me feel old as fucking dirt. later on i was campaigning for that crazy Howard Dean.

    anyway, that was fucking hilarious and i’m bookmarking it, a good way to start my day and it’s always nice to be reminded that you were right! i don’t get that much. :)

  28. 28.

    harlana

    and then later on, Dean let out a scream. it was horrible, terrifying, chilling to the very bone. i was TERRIFIED for the Dems! and i knew how very frightened and fragile they were.

    dead innocent Iraqis, dead solders, not so much.

    but that scream! it will haunt me to this day. the horror, the horror.

  30. 30.

    MR Bill

    Does anyone know what happened to the Poorman and their cohort? I’m still haunted by the image of “Ken” whom someone said ‘looked like he was carved outta ham’…

  33. 33.

    gnomedad

    While I was licking Bush’s scrotum in 2003

    That is some weapon-grade humility there, John. You are one awesome dude. No snark.

  35. 35.

    burnspbesq

    Genius?

    No.

    Bach is genius. Joyce is genius. Einstein is genius. Keynes is genius.

    This is clever. And barely that.

    C’mon, y’all, have some standards.

  36. 36.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    @gnomedad:

    That is some weapon-grade humility there, John. You are one awesome dude. No snark.

    I agree/nosnark, at least until the usual dysthymic follow up Greenwald post of ‘Obama worse than Bush fixing to drone potty mouth bloggers’, along with the obligatory death to you Obot fellators and your shithouse lawyer lackeys.

  37. 37.

    28 Percent

    The Poorman sent me here, and now here I find The Poorman. The circle is complete.

    I miss the Medium Lobster.

  38. 38.

    Mike Koch

    Why yes, I have left it just hanging out there, thank you for looking pervert.

    Geez!

  39. 39.

    Schlemizel

    @Martin:

    Remember the war against Franco
    The kind where each of us belongs!
    He may have won all the battles
    But we had all the good songs!

    The Folk Song Army By Tom Lehrer

  40. 40.

    shortstop

    @Anne Laurie: He’s not funny (or on target with his shtick) in this thread. But he is funny. Extremely funny.

    I wish you weren’t so palpably bitter about so many things. You have some excellent stuff to say, but wide-ranging and inappropriately large hostility is almost always topmost in your posts and comments.

  41. 41.

    shortstop

    Also too, John Cole, I fucking love your ability to admit error with honesty, grace and humor.

  43. 43.

    FlipYrWhig

    BTW, I don’t think this piece is funny at all. I guess I’m missing something.

  45. 45.

    shortstop

    @FlipYrWhig: Hmmm. I say Corner Stone is not funny; he tries way too hard and has some anger issues of his own. However, Just Some Fuckhead is hilarious 75 percent of the time. Discuss!

  46. 46.

    ...now I try to be amused

    I like how The Editors measured awesomeness on a scale of 1 to 10 Airwolves.

  47. 47.

    TenguPhule

    However, Just Some Fuckhead is hilarious 75 percent of the time. Discuss!

    50% of the surveyed disagree.

    Of course 95% of statistics are a lie.

  48. 48.

    shortstop

    @TenguPhule: Plus there’s the margin of error. Math is hard. I often disagree with JSF’s political takes but find he does have a way with words.

  51. 51.

    DaddyJ

    Oh, Lord, that was rich! Had me rolling on the floor in 2003; still works today. Thanks for digging that up. The metaphor wouldn’t work so well applied to Tim Russert; but it is perfect for a humorless, self-important gas giant like Brit Hume.

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