The other day, I said I was feeling like having a
Rude Pundit moment. Well, I feel like another. Now, I'm usually content to leave the remarkably impressive strings of colorful take-downs to the Rude One himself, but when I listened to Cleveland's No. 1 drive-time gasbag
Mike Trivisonno Wednesday afternoon, I felt compelled to get what follows off my chest, both for my personal sanity and for the sanity of those around me. Trivisonno, Triv for short, was in the midst of interviewing Democrat Tim Hagan, a Cuyahoga County (Cleveland, Ohio) commissioner when he said something so stupid, so offensive, that no quantity of civil, link-laden pleadings could ever replace these four words, directed at Triv himself: Shut your fucking mouth.
In discussing the war in Iraq and, to a greater extent, the so-called "war on terror", Triv - who often spars with Hagan over all things political - took his guest to task for what he perceived as the roadblocks in the way of a U.S. victory. Paraphrasing Triv, the
only thing stopping the United States from winning the war on terror
three years ago was the "fact" that the Democrats stood in opposition to everything the president was trying to do
and that the media were "embedded" with the Democrats all along. In other words, the threat of global terrorism persists thanks only to a party that was powerless to stop the president until a little over one month ago and a press corps often
too busy servicing the administration, their corporate masters and a string of missing white women to notice the Democrats even exist, let alone treat them with anything other than
mocking contempt. I immediately did a double-take and asked myself if what I was hearing was correct. I did that until I remembered that we were talking about an incompetent bigot whose callers - with no fight from the host -
blamed the victims of Hurricane Katrina for their plight.
Where I come from, we call people like that "assholes".
I hate to tell you this, Triv, but until last November - when America collectively repudiated the Bush foreign policy that you so breathlessly support - the Democratic Party was basically powerless to stand in the way of the administration. The last time I checked, this president was able to invade Iraq, was able to spy on Americans and was able to escalate our troop levels in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. All the while, though Democrats (and, more often than not, the majority of Americans) disagreed with the president and his policies, nothing stopped this White House from doing what it wanted. Certainly not the Democrats. And certainly not the law. In other words, Triv, until late January, your party was in charge of
everything. If you're not happy with the state of the war, if you think it's fucked up, it's because
your party fucked it up. Not because the Democrats stood in the way. Because, I repeat, your party fucked it up. Face facts, Triv, the Republicans
own Iraq. It was your president sending more than 3,000 of your fellow Americans to their deaths based on a pack of lies. It was your party enabling its business friends to enrich themselves at the expense of our troops. It was your party throwing good money after bad when all signs pointed to a disaster. And it remains your party standing in the way of making true progress in the face of this quagmire.
As an aside, you vehemently disagreed with Hagan when he asserted what has long been known to be true, that this administration sent its soldiers to war without the proper equipment. In fact, you accused Hagan of making a purely political statement. Now, I don't know what magical wisdom parking your arrogant ass behind a microphone in Cleveland gives someone that it doesn't give those on the right side of the facts, but apparently, you must know something the rest of us don't know. Perhaps you should ask soldiers like Cpl. Arthur King, who had his overdue request for upgraded equipment
laughed at by Donald Rumsfeld. Or Spc. Thomas Wilson, who, upon telling Rumsfeld that soldiers had "to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles",
was told, "You go to war with the Army you have." They disagree with your assessment of the military's state of readiness. Perhaps you should listen to them, to say nothing of the countless others who have echoed their sentiments. But that would get in the way of your rosy picture, wouldn't it?
And while we're speaking about rosy pictures, let me clue you into something else, Triv: You
are in the media, you clueless ass. You may not think it, but the moment you stop talking about Indians baseball and wade into topics several thousand levels above your mental pay grade, like Iraq, you can no longer consider yourself outside the Fourth Estate. Sure, you're a sorry excuse for a journalist and it pains me greatly to consider that you've been able to make a nice life for yourself on the back of reality, but you, my friend, are a member of the media. Not only that, Triv, but you're also not as alone as you think.
Glenn Beck.
Rush Limbaugh.
Bill O'Reilly. Some real liberals there, Triv. I could go on, but the list of long-proven-wrong right-wing morons still given a soap box from which to air their sometimes drug-addled views is longer than the flight to the Green Zone, a place I can safely say you've never visited, let alone ventured outside unguarded. Because if you did, if you saw exactly how bad the situation there is and exactly how light of a touch the American media has largely given the true extent of the war, you would shit your pants, you clown.
Allow me to turn your insipid* argument around and point the finger of blame at you, Triv. For if it wasn't for your cheerleading friends in the brain-dead, pro-war media, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. It was your hawkish teammates telling us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That the war would pay for itself. That we'd be greeted as liberators. That the war would last six months. That if we just gave this administration six months, than six more months, than six months after that, and another six months ... That what we needed was more resolve. That this White House deserved "one last chance" in the face of countless chances. That the Democrats were to blame for the state of the war. That the media only focused on the bad news. That to oppose the president was to support the terrorists. That the Iraqis, those still alive, weren't grateful enough for our services. That true sacrifice was never needed. That the
real problem all along wasn't Iraq, but was instead Iran. I could go on and on, Triv, but my head is starting to hurt just thinking about how insanely fucking stupid your side has been throughout this whole sorry matter. That
anyone still listens to people like you is more a testament to the need for America to change the batteries in its national bullshit detector than it is to your woeful powers of discernment.
Being an idiot is one thing. Being an idiot in service of an agenda armed with a hefty audience is another altogether. You, Triv, have been given far too much latitude to spew your wrongheaded views on matters political. Cleveland is being done a great disservice having to suffer your opinions day after day. This area deserves better, just like America deserves better. Hearing you blame the Democrats and the media for the state of things in Iraq is to listen to a man whose intellectual and moral compasses have taken a trip into the Bermuda Triangle. You haven't yet realized it, Triv, but the country has moved on without you. We're not as stupid as you must assume us to be. We know when we're being fed a line of bullshit. So much so, in fact, that it amazes me you remain clueless as to how badly your worldview was repudiated last November. What doesn't amaze me, however, is that you again put your foot in your mouth. It's what you're best at. What I did wish you were better at was heeding the advice of your ideological opposition. And that advice is this: Shut your fucking mouth.
* Look it up, Triv, you might learn something.
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