I’m once again constrained by my schedule today, so I won’t be able to produce any undying works of satire for you. Or even the dying kind. Fortunately, though, Robert Novak has done my work for me.
Enjoy. Novak is shocked that serious scientists don’t seem to approve of President Bush’s stance on stem-cell research, that staunch conservatives think that race and class might have had something to do with the Katrina response, that some folks feel that Karl Rove shouldn’t be taking breaks from the current flotilla of crises to kick back at an Aspen conference.
But my favorite part is this: Novak can’t resist being a tattletale, even if he manages to be completely unreflective about why there’s so much to tattle about. And even though he agreed to the terms of the conference, they don’t totally apply to him:
…Nor do I feel inhibited in quoting myself. Even if I am violating the spirit of secrecy rules, revealing criticism of Bush by this elite group, and the paucity of defense for him, is valuable…
Here’s to Robert Novak - saving satirists time since 1875.
Fanny Roborat
14 comments
Pete IVDL
September 23, 2005 at 3:53 pm
1You have got to be fucking kidding. That shit passes for journalism? I’ve seen primary school essays that were less self-serving and more to the point than that crap. Does Bob the Dinosaur just look up lists of phrases and get someone to stick them together?
You know the phrase I liked best in Bobby’s little essay? “Mostly prestigious”. I assume the staff and assistants and aides did not qualify for scrutiny because they didn’t arrive in private aircraft.
Sorry, Adam, you’ve gotta do better than using Lonely Bob as your guest blogger (although I did note that the erstwhile Mr Novak managed to sling a quick snide note in your direction : “left-wing bloggers”. I was waiting for the “hoick, PTUI”). Boooriiiiing. Can you tee up someone interesting or funny? Bush’s dog?
Harold
September 23, 2005 at 3:56 pm
240-some nursing home residents drown in thir beds in New Orleans. 24 helpless elderly evacuees burn to death in a bus in the Houston evacuation. And this God guy can’t spare ONE lightning bolt for scumbags like Novak?
Pete IVDL
September 23, 2005 at 4:05 pm
3Harold, it’d be a waste of perfectly good electricity! (and I’m somehow certain that Good Ole Bob don’t hold with that electrickery quackery anyways)…
Harold
September 23, 2005 at 4:09 pm
4Pete, don’t you sleep? Isn’t it, like, 6:00 tomorrow morning on the second full day of Spring down there in crazy upside-down world?
madbard
September 23, 2005 at 5:09 pm
5repeat after me: Robert Novak is not a journalist.
Hot Tub Tommy
September 23, 2005 at 5:52 pm
6Hey, it’s W again. Well, Centurian One found me and threw a net over me and gave me a shot of sleepytime medicine. I seem to be getting more and more of these shots lately. Laura says I’ve been under too much stress and it does me good to get more than my usual 14 hours of shut-eye. Well, like she says, “Mama knows best”. Heh, heh.
I heard about that Aspen conference and thought I saw an invitation on my desk, but Karl said my dog ate it and I wouldn’t be able to get past the big burly security men without it. He also said that the bathroom hall pass had been damaged and it would be dangerous to attend without THAT!!! When Karl is right, he’s right.
The Rita the Hurricane thing seems to be getting less and less windiery. Andy says I can have the weekend off and he’ll call if he needs anything. I’ve been wanting to learn how to play that new guitar I got out in California for ignoring Katrina, maybe I’ll do that.
God Bless America!
W
Murray
September 23, 2005 at 8:35 pm
7Novak is shocked… that staunch conservatives think that race and class might have had something to do with the Katrina response,
I personally believe that incompetence is immune to race and class.
Seen through the lens of true, world class stupidity and incompetence, everything this administration has accomplished makes terrifying sense.
Oh,… and why does anyone read this douche bag?
cooper
September 23, 2005 at 10:51 pm
8“…Robert Novak - saving satarists time since 1875.” Hmmm… 130 years old; well, that certainly explains a lot.
BTW, don’t you just love it when the Republicans, hungering for positive news of any kind and not finding it, revert to eating their own?
Adam Felber
September 24, 2005 at 3:05 am
9Just poppin’ back in to say - one of the most delicious ironies of this piece is the unintentional “giving away secrets is really okay!” angle.
I should’ve made that clearer.
tess
September 24, 2005 at 7:00 am
10He’s only 130 years old? You’d think that with the bags under his eyes and the freaky eyebrows that he’s gotta be at least 200 — that mop on his head’s gotta be a white wig from the days he’s hung out with Benedict Arnold and selling secrets to the British army.
Pete IVDL
September 24, 2005 at 6:12 pm
11Adam, you’ll have to do better than that… Oh, you’re right, of course - I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that Novak(aine) actually broke some written or agreed rules of secrecy (which begs the question, why the secrecy?), the fact that he actually brags about breaking “the spirit” of the rules, or the reason he felt it was not only okay to break the rules but also tell everyone he was breaking them!
But, seen in the context of the “contents” of the rest of his “column”, I found more delicious irony in poor old Bob’s admission that he probably won’t be invited back to the next Big Secret Conference because he’s gone and blabbed about this Secret Conference. Maybe he thinks the White House will write a note for him so that all the intelligent prestigious people he so cunningly annoyed both publicly and privately will want him back next year… you know, “Please excuse Bob’s actions this year, he was really helping us to get a better handle on where the American Public is going wrong, so you see he really is Important and Prestigious, and should be invited back next year.” (Obviously, this isn’t Bush’s handwriting)
In fact, there’s so much wrong in so many ways with Bob’s little essay, from content to intent, we’re spoiled for choice.
Harold, I don’t sleep. RSS feeds make sure of that… You’re right, it’s usually about 6AM when I shovel coal into the laptop and wind up the wireless LAN. Fun reading all this in bed, though. And our Spring don’t start until 1st October (I think). More convenient, I believe.
cooper
September 26, 2005 at 11:08 pm
12Pete - October 1st, really? Highly unscientific, but makes perfect bureaucratic sense.
hedera
September 27, 2005 at 12:12 am
13So, in the Southern Hemisphere, they’ve moved the equinox back two weeks?? Up here, it was September 22. I really want to know how they did that without affecting the one up here. Is it more convenient to have it on the first of the month? What are you going to do about the solstice, then?
Pete IVDL
September 28, 2005 at 6:01 pm
14Oops - I lied, apparently. Spring here starts on September 1st. Likewise, Summer is scheduled to begin on December 1st, Autumn ‘falls’ on March 1st, and Winter apparently happens on June 1st. Convenient, huh?
It’s wierd- the few people (who should know) that I’ve asked about this just looked at me as though I’d asked why politicians lie… it just is. Even She Who Makes The Earth Tremble, a qualified horticulturist, just shrugged. The least worst answer I found was that British soldiers used 3-monthly seasons to identify uniform changes (summer uniform to winter uniform, etc), and it’s become the ‘official’ seasonal calendar.
Mind you, none of these people had any idea about the significance of the equinoxes (equinii?
*) or solstices. Now I really wish I hadn’t opened this can of worms, ‘coz my vague but comfortable feeling of cultural superiority has taken a direct hit below the waterline…
It’s funny, the vast majority of people in this country don’t know why the seasons are the way they are, they don’t know when the actual seasons start (from an astronomical / cultural / historical perspective), and most seem to think seasons are nothing more than the remnants of an Anglo-Saxon imperialistic macho heritage, and we should all start using the Aboriginal seasonal calendars (all of which use from 6 to 9 seasons, depending on tribe and location), none of which apply outside their immediate geographical range.
I know we always try to get some order out of natural chaos, and even the ‘real’ seasons are man-made approximations, but on this I think we’ve gone way past ‘order’ and gone on to ‘anally retentive bureaucratic stupidity’.
Didn’t someone mention some Novak fellow earlier in this comment list? Oh no, the FA Effect has happened again!
* I know it’s “equinoces”