My Durst Time: Talking with Comic Will Durst about the All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing

Will Durst is a San Francisco-based comic, pundit, and “Quite possibly the best political satirist working in the country today.” He and I first met when we performed at a Laughing Liberally show in LA.

A year later, we got a chance to reconnect in New York, where Will is making everybody laugh with his new one-man show Will Durst: The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing. From left to right and everywhere in between, from the New York Times to the New York Post, the critics are raving.

When we met on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Durst was reading the sports section over a cup of black coffee. No doubt he had finished reading the latest issue of the Nation magazine and drunk his chai-organic-double-vegan-latte before I got there. But he wasn't fooling me. And soon we were talking about getting flipped off by Olympia Dukakis, helping the terrorists win, necrophilia and other things liberals enjoy.




Katie Halper: Why do you hate America?

Will Durst: I'm not an America-hater, I'm an America-lover. Dissent is the ultimate patriotic act. Just like every liberal commie pinko weenie says.

Halper: When did you start hating America?

Durst: I started loving America right away. Free water. Water fountains everywhere. Refrigerated, cold, refreshing water. You try getting that anywhere else. Try getting that in France, not gonna happen. Go head, I dare you. It's $5.

Halper: Funny, I was going ask you why you don't move to France. But I guess it's the whole water thing. Anyway, you have moments of redemption when you praise Bush, calling him a father figure.

Durst: He has been like a father to me. Just in terms of providing.

Halper: So he's a good provider?

Durst: Yes, not just a decider and a commuter; he's also a provider. Not just for me, but for editorial cartoonists, columnists, anyone with a speck of consciousness. He is very fecund and fertile.

Halper: He is very virile.

Durst: He's like a rising tide. The rising tide of Bush lifts all boats. It's a wonderful rain, it's a hard rain.

Halper: I saw Olympia Dukakis sitting right in front of me in the theater [at your show] and I knew I was in a scary place: a theater in New York, a woman who represents the unholy alliance between the Hollywood elite and liberals. But I was impressed when you got into a hissing match with her. Because anyone who hisses at a Dukakis is a friend of mine.

Durst: Yeah, I told a tough joke about Hillary, which I thought was fair, and then she hissed at me. I got her back on my side by doing the second part of the joke. I didn't know it was Olympia Dukakis at the time. But then when she came backstage, I recognized her. "Oh, my living god. I got heckled by an Oscar winner."

Halper: I think you got flipped the bird too.

Durst: Oh really? She flipped me off?

Halper: Yeah. How does it feel being flipped off by a Democrat?

Durst: Well somebody's gotta do it. I feel like Dennis Miller.

Halper: You make fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger for signing a law outlawing having sex with corpses. Why do you want to legalize necrophilia?

Durst: It's a freedom issue. Like the sanctity of life. It fits into the whole pro-life thing. It's actually part of the pro-life movement.

Halper: Right, the right-to-lifers for necrophilia. And then you're not wasting the seed either.

Durst: Right. Although I'm not sure exactly how that fits in, so to speak.

Halper: In your show you provide immigrants and terrorists with a plan for getting across the border. Why do you help the terrorists win?

Durst: I am of two minds about putting that portion in the show. I understand it could be considered aiding and abetting the enemy to let them know they could go around the 700-mile-long, 16-foot-high wall that covers a 1,952 mile-long border. Or they could bring a ladder. But since they have already started building tunnels, they probably already thought of it. But I really hope that you don't make a big deal of it. Maybe you shouldn't even print this.

Halper: What do you think that political comics can achieve?

Durst: I think we can distill what seem to be incredibly complex questions into something any audience member can understand. They don't have to be a poly-sci major. You can empower them to know that their opinion is important. There's no way that people are going to become enlightened. You're usually preaching to the choir. But it's nice to get the choir to sing. Especially after we've been used as human dart boards for the last six and a half years.

It's funny because there was a time when you couldn't do jokes about Bush. Even though we were, starting on Jan. 21st, 2001. Then Sept. 11th happened, and you couldn't touch him. It was seen as unpatriotic; we were involved in a war. Then Katrina happened. And taking on Bush became fashionable, and now it's considered old hat. We had a window of 18 months for Christ's sake when it was OK. And then it was, "Oh no, Bush is low-hanging fruit," or, "Everybody bashes Bush." Fuck you! We haven't hit him hard enough, and we're gonna hit him until ... until he dies, OK, until he dies, and we'll keep hitting, and then that still won't be enough.

Halper: And then you'll have sex with him?

Durst: Exactly, goes back to the Schwarzenegger law.

Halper: We've really come full circle. Speaking of dead people and perverts, let's go back to the Democrats. My favorite part of the show, obviously, is when you focus on your Clintons, your Kerries, your Dukaki. More of your thoughts on them?

Durst: The Democrats seem more interested in getting re-elected than they are in changing anything for the better. When Gore ducked the Kansas Board of Education teaching intelligent design along with evolution and said, "Children should be exposed to varying theories," I just wanted to dick-slap him, I really did. And he would have had to have been very close, and I understand that. Not that I don't believe in Giselle the Mountain Sprite. She's from where all things flow. She's my goddess.

Halper: Do you renew the show every day with new news stories and headlines?

Durst: I try to. There was a quote from yesterday about dog fighting, and I'm chomping at the bit, so to speak, to put it in the show tonight.

Halper: And how do you actually get your news?

Durst: First I wake up at noon. Then I have to clear all the potato chip bags and beer cans that are covering the floor.

Halper: And the copies of the Nation?

Durst: Of course. Then I find a phrase that I love, and I try to come up with a punch line. I'm all one-liners. They're strung on top of each other so that hopefully the previous punch line is a set up for the next joke. It's piggybacking, which is a timing that I learned works because if you wanna do political comedy in Stockton, Calif., at Uncle Chuckles Fun Hut, then you have to learn how to get them to shut up.

There are about four places where we can work and people really know what we're talking about. N.Y., San Francisco, D.C., Boston. And I don't blame people because it's such a morass, it's so ugly, it's hard to keep up. The names are constantly changing. The circus remains the same, but the clowns are different. So I don't blame people if they don't know what I'm talking about. They have families, jobs, they have a life. It's our job to keep up on this shit and try to put it in terms they understand.

Halper: Was your comedy always political?

Durst: When I started doing standup in 1974, there was the Vietnam War and everything was, "We're gonna fight the man, man." Now, we are the man, man. But everything was political then. High school arithmetic was political. Of course in Wisconsin we didn't get the '60s until about 1974 anyway.

Halper: Was there one thing in particular that politicized you?

Durst: There were some riots in Milwaukee. I actually got run over by a horse. I was there for the chicks. That's what everyone went to rallies for no matter what they say. That was about as political as I got. I was never a big Weatherman kinda guy. I thought blowing shit up to protest blowing shit up was kinda oxymoronic.

Halper: Why a show and not just standup?

Durst: Bigger canvas, more paint, and with writing you can plant a seed in the first paragraph and follow it until it blooms in the last paragraph. That's something I can do with the show. I can take my time between laughs. I always thought I was more literary than most comics. Which doesn't mean they're not smart. Comics are smart. They have a lot going on in their minds. Most are ADHD.

Halper: Are you?

Durst: I dunno. When I was a kid, I was hyper. They started feeding me coffee at the age of 10. That was a popular therapy at the time, over-amping the kid to short-circuit him.

Halper: What's the worst thing that ever happened to you at a show?

Durst: A guy threw his prosthetic leg at me. He was trying to be funny. I held it up. Then I had a glass ash tray shatter behind me on the wall. The woman said she threw it because she was laughing so hard. Then I had a guy taken out on a stretcher because he had a heart attack right before I went on stage. I had a corporate gig the week after 9/11 for a law firm in Palo Alto, and they had an office in the World Trade Center and had just lost 16 people. So they had a moment of silence, and then they brought me on stage. I swear to fucking god.

Another time, this guy started yelling at me, and I couldn't hear him. And someone was taping the show, so he rushed at the camera and tried to grab it and had to be escorted out. It turns out he was an out-of-work right-wing talk show host. So he's calling all the radio stations in Sacramento and saying he was molested by the club staff, saying his freedom of speech was violated. Nobody would return his calls. Another time someone was going to beat me up in a club, but he got into a fight with someone who liked me, and they beat each other up. Good times.

Halper: Are you going to be sad at the end of Bush's term?

Durst: No. Because we're gonna get to know so much about the next person. Some people predicted the demise of political humor after Bill Clinton. Everything was below the belt. Every two-bit hack in America took his dick jokes and made them presidential dick jokes. Corporate gigs loved it when I would take on Clinton. I lost a lot of corporate gigs after Clinton. It's not so funny when you take on the boy king.

Halper: Who was your biggest influence?

Durst: Lenny Bruce. I used to listen to him before I went on stage. I read his autobiography, How to Talk Dirty. And there are great political comics out there. You were hysterical the other night. And there's Lee Camp, Costaki, David Feldman, Johnny Steel, Barry Weintraub. Marga Gomez is my hero. I worked with Mort Sahl a few months ago. He's great. He's 80 years old and his opening line was, "If Paris Hilton goes to jail, will that rob her life of meaning?"

Halper: What are you hoping your show will accomplish?

Durst: Driving a nail through capitalism.



***

Will Durst: The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing is now playing at New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St., Manhattan, (212) 239-6200. It is presented by Hanging Chad Productions, Jennifer Sachs and Allen Spivak; and directed by Eric Krebs; and it features a production design by Peter Feuchtwanger. For tickets go to Telecharge.com or call 212-239-6200.

Breaking News! Perry Caves in to anti-Death Penalty Nuts

UPDATE: Yesterday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted six-to-one to commute Kenneth Foster's death sentence and Governor Rick Perry commuted the sentence to life in jail. Guess the governor didn't get my letter on time. Oh well, Texas still has 23 more executions before the year is over.

Do Not Not Kill an Innocent Man

Dear Governor Perry,

First of all, happy belated happy 400th execution day! It seems like only yesterday that Texas reinstated the death penalty, and yet you have managed to execute 400 people since 1982. Oops, scratch that, you killed DaRoyce Mosley Tuesday night, so make that 401 people, right? Actually, by the time you get this letter, you may have killed your 402nd inmate, John Amador, scheduled for August 29th. Or you may even have killed the 403rd person, Kenneth Foster, scheduled to die August 30th. As you know, Kenneth Foster’s fate is in your hands. In 1996, when Michael LaHood was fatally shot, of course, the man who pulled the trigger was not Foster, but Mauriceo Brown. And sure, Foster was inside a car at the time of the murder. Sure, 80 feet away from the crime scene, he was unaware of what Brown was up to. And sure, Amnesty International says,

In essence, Kenneth Foster has been sentenced to death for leaving his crystal ball at home. There is no concrete evidence demonstrating that he could know a murder would be committed. Allowing his life to be taken is a shocking perversion of the law.

The law of parties allows anyone involved in anyway in a crime to be found as guilty as the person who committed the crime. Texas is unique because it applies this law to death penalty cases. In other words, Texas is so special, it will execute you for a crime it admits you did not commit.

I know you have received letters from leftist anarchist wing bats like Archbishop Tutu, Jimmy Carter, and the European Union who are trying to bully you into granting a stay of execution. So I wanted to write you my own letter, urging you to hold your ground. Stay strong Mr. Governor! I so admire how you stood up to those EU girly boys, telling them,

230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.

Who cares what the EU pansies think? When it comes to the death penalty, you are in good company. Some of the most freedom-loving countries-- Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, Zimbabwe—have capital punishment. I, like yourself, am a traditionalist and love your argument that “the people of Texas decided a long time ago that the death penalty was a good idea.” After all, Texas has a long proud history of old noble decisions going back to the War of Northern Aggression.

And, of course, "Texans are doing just fine governing Texas," representing its people and defending their interests. I think the Texan record speaks for itself. You are number one in percentage of uninsured, and number two in non-immunized children and teenage pregnancy. You are number five in poverty AND child poverty (no fair!)

Mr. Governor, I'm sure your used to people accusing the Death Penalty of being racist. And of the three men killed/ to be killed this week, one was black and one was Latino. But, out of the 10 upcoming executions, one of them is white.

Governor Perry, when you feel yourself faltering, just remember the strong gubernatorial roots that ground and nourish you. President George Bush, arguably Texas’s greatest governor, executed 152 people in his unique caring way. In his page-turning autobiography A Charge to Keep, Bush wrote, "I take every death penalty case seriously and review each case carefully.... Each case is major because each case is life or death." Bush took the cases so seriously, that he would even read the clemency pleas, according to his then legal council Alberto Gonzalez, "from time to time". Signing 152 death sentences was so stressful for Bush, sometimes the poor governor had to resort to impersonating death row inmates’ pleas for clemency in order to decompress.

So please listen to reason, Mr. Governor, your own reason: "Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens." Like sitting in your car and not being clairvoyant.

Sincerely, Katie Halper

To tell Governor Perry what you think about Kenneth Foster’s case, call 512-463-2000, fax (512) 463-1849 and visit here.

And call the Board of Pardons and Paroles today!


Rissie Owens
(512) 936-6351
(936) 291-2161


Charles Aycock
806-359-7656


Linda Garcia
979-849-3031


Jose L. Aliseda,
210-564-3721


Juanita Gonzalez
254-865-8870


Conrith Davis
936-291-2161


Jackie DeNoyelles
903-723-1068

Who Framed Larry Craig?

The real tragedy behind Craig’s arrest: the death of the Singing Senators




Today is a terrible day for America, public bathrooms, a cappella music everywhere. The arrest of Senator Larry Craig by an undercover police officer for lewd conduct in a public men's bathroom is the final nail in the coffin in which rots the once vibrant barbershop quartet known as the Singing Senators. Also called the Vocal Majority, the Singing Senators, or SS, consisted of John Ashcroft, baritone; Trent Lott, bass; Jim Jeffords, tenor; and Larry Craig, lead. The quartett’s beginning were as humble as the senators themselves. They started out harmonizing to Happy Birthday at the birthday party of fellow Republican senator Bob Packwood a framee in his own right, who would be forced to resign over sexual harassment charges based on bogus evidence like his diary and accusations from 11 different people. The crooners had their formal debut at the Kennedy Center and then went on to record an album Let Freedom Sing in Nashville and perform on the Today Show. As their popularity skyrocketted, The SS started performing more frequently, raising millions of dollars for Republican causes and charities. They may have sounded in tune, but something was out of key. And that was Jim Jeffords, who became an Independent, betraying not only the GOP but the SS. Days before Jeffords defected, a hopeful Lott predicted Jefford would stay in the party “After all, I mean, what would we do in the future about the Ainging Senators? We need Jim to be part of that harmony.” But Jeffords abandoned the quartet, and in a flash the Singing Senators were over, a blast from the past. Lott never saw it coming.



But Craig would not be silenced and, the quartet’s lead, used to leading, launched a solo career, writing his own songs, the most notable perhaps, an homage to Judge Samuel Alito, (to the tune of the West Side Story's "Maria"

The most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard/Alito, Alito/Alito, I just met a judge named Alito/And suddenly the name will never be the same/Alito, Bush just picked a judge named Alito/Alito, say it proud, that Republican saying/Say it soft and there’s Democrats praying/Alito, may the Senate confirm Alito.

Singing was just to fun for this Senator to give up. As Craig explained to Senator John Thune, whom he tried to recruit to the SS, “You’ve got to let your hair down and enjoy it.”

Then finally, only 2 moths ago, on June 12, after a 6-year hiatus, the Singing Senators made a comeback! Purged of the defecting Jeffords, their sound was purer and the trio was tighter. Craig explained, “We’re not a quartet any longer. We’re a trio, and there are a lot of good reasons for that.” Singing at a fundraiser for the Congressional Coalition of Adoption Institute, the three singing senators performed God Bless America, country and gospel tunes, and the sexy Oak Ridge Boys hit American Made:

She looks good in her tight blue jeans /she bought in Mexico/ And she loves wearing French perfume everywhere we go/ But when it comes to the lovin' heart/ one thing is true/ My Baby's genuine "U.S.A." / red white and blue/ From her silky long hair to her sexy long legs/ My baby is "American Made".

The SS had performed with the Oak Ridge Boys in 1997, so singing American Made marked a 10 year anniversary of Christian jamming.

Here's where things get fishy. This reunion show took place on Tuesday June 12. The arrest of Larry Craig took place on June 11th, one day before! And the arrest report was enetered on June 12th just hours before the reunion concert would kick off. A coincidence? Or a vast left-wing conspiracy? The reunion concert had to have been widely publicized through the series of tubes that is the internets. And the arrest was surely an attempt to silence Craig and the Singing Senators. The former rancher, family values conservative Idaho senator is said to have solicited gay sex in an airport bathroom. And yet, Craig is so straight, he voted for a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage(sorry Mary cheney), opposes including homosexuals in hate crime legislation. And he’s so not gay that when he was accused of being involved in a sex scandal involing male pages he said that made him “Mad as hell.”





Which sounds pretty macho to me. If he’s gay, why did he preemptively release a statement saying he wasn’t when he hadn’t been implicated in the scandal anyway? Sheesh. What could be less gay?

It looks like someone wants to shut up the Singing Senators.... only this time... for good.

The Barbersop ensemble, be it quartet or trio, is the most wholsome, most patriotic of all American all-male a cappella singing traditions. The values, the freedom-loving, and the irresistible melodies and rthyms of the SS threaten the liberal, gay, Jewish, vegan establishment bent on bringing down America.

Well, they may be able to stop the Singing Senators. They may be able to frame Craig. They may be able to persecute Lott, destroy his porch and put racist words in his mouth. They may be able to recruit Jim Jeffords. But nothing, not even pancreatis or Gonzolezean hospital-room harassment can bring down John Ashcroft. He will sing for the Senators, he will make the Singing Senators Soar.

An Open Letter to Robert E. Murray

To Robert E. Murray
CEO, Murray Energy Corporation
Address unknown

Dear mine-owner and CEO Murray,

I was touched when you promised that you would "not leave this mine until those men are rescued, dead or alive." So I was extremely worried, having read the headline "Murray's Absence Puzzles Families." A company spokesman said you were "ministering" to the families of the miners, but it turns out the families have not seen you either. The ingrates actually "feel that Bob Murray has abandoned [them]." What these families fail to understand is that your absence is selfless, not selfish. Six years ago, Mayor Rudy Giuliani went down to Ground Zero and was exposed to the "exact same things that [the rescue workers] were." He became "one of them." And today, you, Mr. Murray, with a Rudy-esque valor and empathy, have put yourself in the same position as the little people who work for you, and you too are missing.

Wherever you are, I hope you can hear me and know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. I know you must be doing something righteous. You yourself are the first to admit that you fight for "the little guy that nobody cares about." Like the little guys to whom you donate: George "Maccaca" Allen, Katherine Harris, Mitch McConnell and Christopher "Friend of Jack Abramoff" Pombo.

You stand up to special interest groups like Mine Safety. Your friend Senator McConnell happens to be married to Labor secretary Elaine Chao and when an inspector for the Mine Safety Health Administration, which Chao oversees, got out of line, and wouldn't shut up about safety violations, you tactfully reminded him, "Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss." Luckily, Department of Labor justice is as blind as Department of Justice justice and the uppity safety inspector was transferred and forced into early retirement.

When opportunistic politicians tried to politicize the Sago mine tragedy by passing laws which would protect workers' safety, you stated "I resent these politicians playing politics with my employees' safety because I take the safety of my miners to bed with me every night." When the most opportunistic of all, that senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, said America needs a President who is "pro-labor and will appoint people who actually care about workers' rights and workers' safety" you had the balls of coal to call her "anti-American."

When tragedy struck you experienced a state of denial only felt by those who are at one with the little miners. At a press conference following the collapse you insisted "there's no emergency here," and threatened to call off the conference unless helicopters flying overhead were removed. You are a believer and explained "the lord has already decided whether they're alive or dead and whether they were killed from the percussion from the earthquake. But it's up to Bob Murray and my management to get the access to them as quickly as we can."

The liberal, Jewish, gay, vegan media is claiming that retreat mining, the fictitious method in which miners pull down the last standing pillars of coal and let the roof fall in, caused the collapse. Retreat mining sounds pretty safe to me, and it's only killed thirteen people in the last seven years. Talk about conspiracy theories! You know that the unfortunate accident had nothing to do with alleged "dangerous mining conditions." And you swear that "this was caused by an earthquake, not something that Murray Energy or our management did. It was a natural disaster....And I'm going to prove it to you." Government seismologists argue there was no way this was an earthquake, but who are we going to believe? A bunch of nerds who have nothing better to do than get PhDs in seismology? Or you, a man who knows it's all up to G-d any way.



This isn't the first time you have used your organic grasp of science to take on pseudo-science. You called global warming a myth and "Albert" Gore "the shaman of global goofiness and gloom and doom" responsible for "the destruction of American lives and more death as a result of his hysterical global goofiness with no environmental benefit."


Because you are an outspoken defender of coal rights, because you speak truth to power, and truth to mishigas like global warming and non-earthquake induced collapses, you are persecuted by those who harp on harmless minutiae: the 2,787 violations, $2.4 million proposed fines, and accident rates two times higher than the national average at your mine in Illinois; your 64 violations and $12,973 in fines proposed at Crandall, or the injury rates that are eight times higher than average at Ohio Mine.

I can only surmise you are off chasing the real culprit, the earthquake, as you promised. Or perhaps you are talking to God to see whether he decided if the miners were "dead or alive." Or maybe you overslept. That is a distinct possibility since you do take your miners' safety with you to bed every night.

So let us call off this lost cause of a search for the little miners, and search for the one great man we must find and save: Robert Murray.

Sincerely,
Katie Halper

Bush & Bush

Apparently, it's not easy being W's father. As Ron Kauffman, an advisor to 41, explained, hearing criticism of Bush Junior "wears on his heart and on his soul." According to the New York Times, Herbert Walker Bush compares himself to "a Little League father whose kid is having a rough game. And like the proud and angry Little League dad who cannot help but yell at the umpire, sometimes he just cannot help getting involved." It seems like Bush is more of "a little league father whose kid has no arms and no legs."


Bush tells his son not to draw pictures on the programs at Gerald Ford's funeral

Pentagon Protection Program: Guantanamo Bay

An ungrateful Gordon Brown is asking the U.S. to release 5 Guantamo Bay inmates who had lived in Britain. But Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. J. D. Gordon explained that he didn't want to release them without getting "credible assurances that they would be treated humanely." Until then, these inmates will be kept safe and sound in small cold cells where they can cuddle with "truth dogs," play "water boarding," and be protected from the dangerous Geneva Convention.

With Torture Like This, Who Needs Healthcare?

When I read that a Pentagon spokesman didn't want to release Guantanamo Bay inmates without getting "credible assurances that they will be treated humanely" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Then I thought about SICKO. I love Michael Moore. And I loved SICKO. Like no other mainstream film, it exposes the sick state of American medicine, diseased and deformed beyond recognition by the invasion of corporate parasites. A man with cancer dies because his insurance company denies him the conventional therapy of bone marrow transplants, which it deems experimental; a mother loses her infant febrile daughter when their HMO insists she be taken to a distant ER for treatment. 9/11 rescue workers cannot afford medicines and treatments to alleviate debilitating conditions resulting from ground-zero. Moore shows us universal health care in Britain, France, and Canada. I’m touched, outraged--and grateful to Moore for rallying the troops to march for universal healthcare for all, here in the wealthiest nation on earth.

As usual, Moore’s new film has provoked criticism, accusations of lies or at least omitting and distorting the facts. So he doesn’t show us the lines that our northern neighbors must sometimes wait on but he gives us the big picture of universal healthcare. So he romanticizes the European welfare state, overlooks the absence of British dental care, but it allows him to show us the ultra greed and ruthlessness of our flawed system. I’m used to defending Michael Moore against criticisms. He is not dishonest. He does not lie. Sometimes he omits. But just to make the bigger point to an ADD American public used to sound bites and MTV hype. And besides the overall message is a truthful one. These systems are not perfect, but they are still much better than our own healthcare system.

So it’s really surprising that out of all these critical reviews, I couldn’t find one that addressed the biggest and most problematic omission. Through his representation of Guantanamo Bay, Moore does not lie, he lets liars lie, and asks us to accept their word as truth. GTMO, Moore says, is the "one place on American soil that had free universal healthcare.” A montage of politicians including Rumsfeld and Frist testify to the high-level health care, that high-level terrorists receive at GITMO. And thus with the rescue workers in tow, Moore sails to Guantamano, to get the quality government healthcare denied them and bestowed on “evil-doers.”

I suspect Moore means to mock the sophomoric language and mentality of the Bush administration. Moore’s tongue is in his cheek and his heart is in the right place. Guantanamo is a convenient and ironic transition to get Moore and the 9/11 workers to the island of Cuba. Yet Moore omits the fact that the men at Guantanamo are not all terrorists, nor are they all the recipients of the quality healthcare that should be going to us. The great majority of the men at GITMO were in the wrong place at the wrong time or had the wrong beard at the wrong time. Far from receiving stellar medical care, inmates have been denied treatment, until they "cooperate." They’ve been physically and psychologically tortured, often with participation by physicians and other medical professionals. Hunger-strikers protesting against their treatment have been force fed though large tubes inserted down their nose and throat. “Medical ethics” have been broken at Guantanamo, US medical organizations, like the American Psychiatric Association, have asserted.

I’m sure that Moore knows all this. In fact, he acknowledged in an interview with Amy Goodman that the force feeding of prisoners is called “nutrition counseling.” Yet the mainstream audience he is trying to reach probably doesn't. And they won't, after seeing the movie. The man sitting next to me in the theater, shook his head in disbelief during the Guantanamo scene, not because the 9/11 workers are treated worse than the U.S. claims to treat terrorists who are mostly innocent people, whom we torture. He was shaking his head with outrage. America’s enemies are getting the care that America’s heroes deserve. He didn’t see that Moore’s tongue was in his cheek, but only that he went to Guantanamo and reported no problems for the “evil doers,” only for Americans.

When I bring the issue up with my "liberal" blog-reading progressive friends, they defend Moore's treatment. Moore had no choice. The contrast between 9/11 heroes and 9/11 villains was irresistible--true or not. Okay, he omitted certain things, but it was worth it: American’s minds were being changed about universal healthcare. We liberals, will leave the theaters with our concern for human rights, legal rights, and torture victims in tact, but newly energized to wage the winnable war for universal healthcare. It's a win/win situation.


But it’s not a win/win situation. Moore’s message is not benign. Those who go into the theater ignorant or incredulous to the reality of Guantanamo Bay will perhaps leave the theater even more resistant to claims of torture. Because now they can say “tortured? They get better treatment than we do.” And “innocent? Even that crazy left Wing Michael Moore says they’re evil doers.”

Ironically, the only ones registering Moore’s depiction of Guantanamo Bay come from the right. They use the film to discredit Moore as inconsistent and to defend the treatment of Guantanamo. One conservative blogger writes

Isn’t Moore one of those liberal morons that have been so up-in-arms about the horrible treatment — I seem to recall the word “torture” used a few times — the American military has bestowed on the prisoners of Club Gitmo? So horrible, in fact, that he’s taking these 9/11 heroes there to hopefully partake in the prisoners’ torturous handling, including “free teeth cleaning, eye care and nutrition counseling.“

An article called "America Should be Proud to Expand Guantanamo" argues

Guantanamo’s conditions are beyond humane. Detainees enjoy soccer and volleyball, pray to Mecca five times daily, and eat Allah-ready meals, adding 10 pounds to the typical combatant’s physique. They also receive medical care that even Bush hater Michael Moore praises in his new movie, SiCKO.

Lew Waters who describes himself as a “your every day average blue collar conservative Viet Nam Veteran” on his blog called “Right in a Left World” left this comment on the the TomDelay.com “

Funny thing from Moore in his defense of this garbage. He said, "he was just trying to visit the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp after learning that suspected al-Qaeda detainees had access to better health care than many Americans."I thought all we did to detainees in Guantanamo was abuse, torture and mistreat them?

As for us enlightened liberals? The only thing I could find were some comments left on blogs and a cartoon by Matt Bors I came across on Alternet. We, the ones who Moore doesn’t have to worry about, don’t seem to be as informed and angry as we should be. The progressive choir to whom Moore shouldn’t have to preach is not as converted as we claim.

Nazi Kos

Bill O'Reilly is the only journalist honorable enough to go after the Daily/Yearly Kos Nazis But one honest journalist cannot do it all, and so I decided to investigate the hate-site's convention for myself. I went to several panels, and the most hateful of all was The Arc of Crisis: U.S. Policy in the Middle East and South Asia" which included speakers Juan Cole, John J. Mearsheimer, Dennis Perin,and Manan Ahmed This panel proved, once again, that the liberal, Jewish gay vegan bloggerati are getting their panties all up in a bunch about the Middle East. Anyone with a shred of critical thinking ability knows that the situation in the Middle East is not an arc of crisis, but rather an arc of mission accomplishment and progress. When that little scuffle broke out between Israel and Hezbollah just last summer, Condoleezza Rice explained, in her typically infinite wisdom, "What we're seeing here are the birth bangs of a new Middle East." Building on this insightful assessment, I think it’s clear that what we are seeing today in Pakistan are merely the stretch marks or hemorrhoids, of democracy. And what we are seeing in Iraq is the episiotomy of liberty.

During the Presidential Leadership forum I heard Democratic candidates Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, Obama, and Richardson, admit that, if elected, they would take away our freedoms, most principally our freedom from the oppression of habeas corpus. These Democrats could not be more out of touch: Habeas corpus is so 700 hundreds years ago, so Magna Carta. Besides, it's in Latin and nobody speaks Latin anymore so why should we be using Latin laws. Ergo, I commend our president's gravitas, his whole modus operandi etc, etc in undoing the constitution.

The lowest blow came from blogger Joan McCarter , or MC Joan as she's known in the DJ circle. Moderating the presidential forum, MC Joan had the audacity to accuse Alaskan politicians of corruption. Of Course, MC Joan was referring to Ted "Series of Tubes" Steven, who is being investigated for baseless charges of corruption and bribery. Ted Stevens is a great man and a patriotic senator who supports the War on Polar Bears. In fact, when the Senate voted against his bill to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve to drill for oil, Ted said, "This is the saddest day of my life." Ted Stevens is 83 years old. He fought in World War II and lost his first wife. But seeing his best friend's head blown off in Okinawa or his losing his first wife in a plane crash were nothing compared to witnessing the Senate deny Ted, and America, his God-Given right to kill endangered species. That day on the Senate floor was the saddest of the 30,000 295 days of Ted’s long, noble life.

On a more personal note, I admit that I was very disappointed that Joseph Wilson was not in attendance. Though we have different political views,
Joe and I really hit it off at last year’s Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas. Because of scheduling snafus and a restraining order, however, I haven't been able to see Joe since. I always say, out of all the blogging conferences in all the cities in all the world, he had to walk into mine. He had me at "What I didn't find in Africa."

Well, I can tell you what I found in Vegas: A silver-haired fox with a pair of baby blues that could melt the secret identity off of any covert operative.