House of Eratosthenes

Every two years, our political parties, both major and minor, start up campaigns so that they can win seats. If they’re fortunate enough to be able to buy time on the television or radio, they somehow get ahold of some talent to actually produce those ads: write the scripts, hire the actors, produce the visual/sound effects, etc. Those people get paid a lot of money. Before that, though, something else takes place: Someone analyzes what’s going on this year, news events, polling data, and the like, how it all impacts the message that should be put out to get the best results possible — which may, or may not, resemble the message that would have been put out two years previous. The people who decide that, also, get paid a lot of money…except now, we’re talking heap-big money.

Hey Republicans. Here’s an idea you can have for free.

Richard Belzer is an airhead liberal Hollywood celebrity who pulls his opinions pretty much out of his ass, and recently appeared on Prime Time with Bill Maher to convince everyone that he’s not just an airhead liberal Hollywood celebrity who pulls his opinions out of his ass. Here is your clip (some language NSFW). He decided to make his case while being the only one in the studio wearing fancy sunglasses. Now that, right there, is a tip-off that Belzer can review exactly the same information that finds its way to me, and for whatever reason, come to an entirely different conclusion about what should be done.

And that’s okay with me.

But it doesn’t seem to be okay with Belzer. Our current President, having been elected to the job in which one assumes the authority and responsibility for figuring out who, if anyone, should be attacked, decided Iraq was the place. Belzer thinks we should have attacked something else. What that something else is, I don’t know. Why he thinks this, I don’t know. How sure he is that he has all of the relevant information needed to decide this, I don’t know, so don’t bother asking me whether I share his certainty or not.

But on Planet Belzer, if one guy has the job of deciding something and another guy doesn’t, and the two guys disagree on that thing, the guy who does not have the job of deciding that thing is “right,” and the guy who does have the job of deciding that thing is “wrong.”

Case by case, that’s something that could very well be. On Planet Freeberg, the logical next question to ask would be Atticus Finch’s favorite: “Do you really think so?” Or more precisely, “Why do you think so?”

It wasn’t asked.

It hasn’t been asked.

Things left unchanged, it never will be asked.

Hells bells. Belzer even mentioned, repeatedly, that he knows better what’s going on in Iraq than the people who have the job of being there, because he reads twenty newspapers every day. Did anybody bother to ask him what the twenty newspapers were? He was practically begging them to ask him. Not a peep.

And there’s your commercial, Republicans. The public perception is — since it has been repeated over and over, and never contradicted anywhere — that liberals, be they the Hollywood variety or not, are being “silenced” from offering their “dissenting viewpoints” and “questioning our policies.” That’s bullshit. Simply say so. If anyone questions why you’re calling it bullshit, show them the video clip, linked above.

Liberals are not only having a lovely time airing their “dissenting viewpoints,” they’re practically having orgasms doing it. They’re being cheered, they “dissent” very, very loudly, and they interrupt whoever is talking any time they feel like it. The viewpoints they offer, are very seldom vigorously explored, either by themselves or by those whose job it is to ask them probing questions. What does end up being vigorously explored, is that fuzzy line between being “outspoken” and being what is called “rude.”

If I may be allowed to paint with a broad brush — and I think in this case, it’s fair — anti-war liberals think they’ve given an audience a persuasive reason to agree with them, when that audience would otherwise not be so persuaded, simply when the liberals talk in a loud, annoying voice and say the same things over and over again.

That makes it hard to discuss these things without expletives being thrown around or voices being raised (as Maher, to his chagrin, found out). But it makes it hard to do something else, too. It makes it hard to run things…like, for example, a country.

Republicans, there is nothing unusual at all about what happened on Maher’s show here. Nothing at all. Happens every damned day with an anti-war liberal, somewhere.

These people have no arguments. They have statements that they can’t back up. They think they have a shot at taking over Congress this year, and on that point, they may very well be right. Point out that they have no clue why they think the things they think, nor do they care — only that they want things done the way they want them done.

Point it out. This year. Now.

The nation’s security probably depends on it. Oh, and if you need to ask me why I think that, rest assured, I’ll be able to tell you. I don’t live on Planet Belzer.

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The CampaignSunday, March 19th, 2006

The Campaign
Sunday, March 19th, 2006