Tennis Anyone?

I've got to stop watching TV. I was totally freaked out last night. It was part Bizarro world, part bizarre. I was screaming at Chris Matthews for being a putz, I was agreeing with Bill O'Reilly, and I was staring slack jawed at Dennis Miller. I really have to find a new hobby.

Matthews was trying to do a gotcha moment with the junior senator from my home state, Roland Burris. He had tape recording conversations between Burris and Robert Blagojevich, and had Burris on the line. Now I am hardly a fan of Burris, but I didn't hear anything in the conversation that was that untoward on Burris' part, the Blago brothers seem shady, but not so much Burris. But Chris thought he had him. Because of a huge, and rather stupid, leap by Matthews. Burris, in response to the pressure by Blago's brother, said " I might be able to get Wright to set something up.", referring to his partner. Matthews played the quote for him and Burris responded. Then a few minutes later Matthews says "but you promised to have your partner hold a fundraiser." I'd be in a lot of trouble if every time I said I might be able to do something and wound up being held to a promise.

Chris, when you play recorded conversations you don't get to edit the words. And the words matter.

Bill O'Reilly was doing a segment on some Canadian professor who is against any tightening up of regulations on Facebook, etc. about sharing pictures by young people. O'Reilly, though not even getting close to anything involving parental involvement, was upset with the concept, which is, especially for him, quite rational. I started questioning my own values when I realized this. But then he went on and on and eventually showed his true nature. He asked the question to his guest about who was the enemy here. In O'Reilly's world it's black and white, good and bad. No issue is complex. There has to be an enemy. I felt better.

I also felt better when his Patriot award for the night went to Bill Clinton. For telling a self-deprecating joke. Patriotic? O'Reilly's a boob.

But then he went into his "Between Barack and a Hard Place" segment, for which he should pay royalties to Chicago's Second City troupe. This segment involves poor Fox lapdog Alan Colmes and the miserable twit, Monica Crowley. They each get to say a good thing that Obama has done and bad thing he has done, and then they argue about it. Crowley's bad thing was the President's handling of the North Korea situation. When Colmes tried to corner her with the facts that George Bush was guilty of the same actions, Crowley started veering off message. And then, in Bizarro world fashion, O'Reilly also tried to pin her down. But like all of the blond conservative talking heads, she will change the subject and when backed into a corner will just start spouting conservative buzzwords. And again I was scratching my head about O'Reilly.

Finally he helped me back into reality by putting Dennis Miller on. Miller starts out his segment by putting some type of flower in his mouth and doing some type of flamenco dance. It was an homage to Sonia Sotomayor. It was unbelievable. Only Fox would allow, hell pay for, an idiot to disrespect an entire ethnic class. And the Republicans wonder why they don't attract more of the Hispanic vote.

Since Judge Sotomayor's nomination there has been much outrage about that nomination vis a vis her gender and ethnicity. Most of that has come from old angry white men, though a lot of younger dumb blonds have chimed in. I understand why the white men are angry. They are losing the control of the situation that they achieved through their hard efforts in being born a white man. I am an old angry white man, and I feel a little concerned by making these comments, as the other white men may beat me up. That's one of the things they're good at, and their chief method of problem solving.

But heroically, or as O'Reilly might mislabel it patriotically, I will say that her life story is wonderful, and I believe that her life and how it has shaped her thinking is a valuable thing for the Supreme Court.

Gotta run. There's an angry mob of white guys looming.