For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Florida woman fired for involvement in Tea Party!

Thoughts? 

CBS announced its new fall lineup to advertisers and the entertainment press on May 18. After all the jawing and legal wrangling back and forth over televised profanity, and whether it’s somehow not profane if it’s blurted out accidentally, CBS has ended the debate over accidents. The artists formerly known as the classy “Tiffany Network” have very deliberately introduced a new show called “$#*! My Dad Says.”

That’s right – the fecal curse word starting with an S in the title. They pronounce it “Bleep My Dad Says.” They could simply have called it “Stuff My Dad Says” and not lost a scintilla of descriptive power. All they would lose is the childish wish to offend.

Michael Schneider of the trade publication Variety joked that it’s too bad they didn’t use an exclamation point and then a plus sign in the title after the dollar and pound signs, so the keyboard strokes would look more like the actual curse word. He actually gave CBS credit that they did not “wimp out” and sensibly clean up the show title. In the old black-and-white days a sitcom like this would simply be named after its star, “The William Shatner Show.” Nowadays the title selection requires talent – of a 12-year-old.

This S-bomb show is a spinoff from a page on the social-media website Twitter with the same toilet-plugging name. Perhaps someone would argue that CBS is merely trying to stay true to the spirit of the actual Twitter page by Justin Halpern, where nearly every 140-character tweet of his dad’s cranky “wisdom” is laced with profanities. Halpern already milked his cursing dad for a book deal before turning his excretory ambitions to television executives.

But Variety reported that CBS programming chief Nina Tassler was having fun with the new show title by quipping to reporters that CBS has ordered some “really funny [bleep]” after their sitcom “Big Bang Theory” on Thursdays. Tassler said the new show “proved that new media and traditional media are coming together in very cool ways.” This Tassler has a very twisted idea of what “very cool” is. She also infamously declared that CBS’s last attempt to be cool, the bed-hopping Seventies polyester-orgy flop “Swingtown,” was “fun and fresh” and “right in my sweet spot” of nostalgia.

It’s quite clear that this title gives Hollywood and its media lapdogs a naughty thrill as they “mainstream” the most vulgar lingo. Imagine the network salesmen telling advertisers “You really want to bet on [Bleep].” CBS’s perfect sponsor would be Frank’s Red Hot Sauce, whose ad agency has the same “standards” as CBS. Their radio ad’s “grabber” is a sweet-voiced grandmother type who says of the hot sauce, “I put that [bleep] on everything.” What an appetizing combo plate these merchants would make.

Critics outside the Hollywood bubble scorned CBS for its gaudy attempt to take profanity to a new level, to which CBS responds that the show will “in no way be indecent and will adhere to all CBS standards.” What is clear is that there is no such thing as “CBS standards.” There is only that which CBS can, and can’t get away with.

The network also lamely noted the show can be blocked using the V-chip. But the V-chip can be organized to block out L-codes for crude language, but it blocks the actual episode (if it’s coded), not titles. If there were a “D” for dishonesty, CBS would be banned.

The whole S-word debut was unveiled on the same day that CBS submitted a legal brief in a federal appeals court declaring once again that it cannot be fined for the Janet Jackson breast exposure. In a defense that would make Bill Clinton proud, CBS argued it did not have a “guilty mind” in airing the wardrobe malfunction.

Doesn’t the one hand of CBS really betray the other hand, as much as they try to play ignorant?

CBS lawyers get paid the big bucks to be perpetually clueless, since some people have long enough memories to recall that Viacom president Mel Karmazin took responsibility and owned the guilt before Congress in 2005. He admitted that halftime-show organizers planned out a ripped-shirt finale, and “we take responsibility for it.” Karmazin and CBS clearly didn’t believe a word of it. 

Our broadcast television networks are not being shy about their agenda. They clearly intend to drag the American people into the enlightenment of the “21st century,” where all that is putrid is permissible.

As the Joe Sestak job-offer scandal took a weird turn on Friday — Bill Clinton offered me an unpaid, obscure presidential advisory panel placement to dissuade me from a Senate run? — The Washington Post found in the new story a chance to hail Bill Clinton. At the very end of a Saturday report headlined "Bill Clinton has evolved into Obama’s Mr. Fix It," reporters Philip Rucker and Paul Kane slipped into fanboy mode:  

Sestak said Clinton briefly brought up Emanuel’s suggestion that if Sestak dropped out he might end up on a presidential advisory board for the Pentagon or the intelligence community. Sestak flatly turned him down.

"I knew you’d say that," Clinton replied. Even the master can’t fix everything.

Left unsaid: if Clinton is "the master," why is Obama president instead of his wife? (Or do you just repeat "Even the master…") On the front page, the Post seemed to be buying this square-peg-for-round-hole tale about this weird, very unpersuasive offer no one would accept. Reporter Michael Shear tried playing cute and light in his opening, that Obama "resisted acknowledging what the top West Wing lawyer finally admitted on Friday: This administration plays politics. And not always effectively."

You’d have to turn inside the paper and wait until paragraph 12 for  any Republican response, where Shear wrote RNC Chairman Michael Steele "tried to hit Obama where it hurts." (Steele said Obama’s team wasn’t transparent, accountable, or ethical.)

Shear then quickly turned to how "the Washington legal community — which loves a good public inquiry — seemed unimpressed." 

Rucker and Kane found "Clinton was considered the natural person to turn to. Sestak had worked for Clinton’s National Security Council and still considers him a political hero." It sounds the same for the Post reporters.

An absolutely astounding thing happened on MSNBC’s "Hardball" Friday: Chris Matthews praised Rush Limbaugh.

Not only that, but what tickled Matthews’ fancy was the conservative talk radio host lampooning former President Bill Clinton.

To set this up, the "Hardball" host invited MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell and NBC’s David Gregory on the program to discuss Friday’s revelation that Clinton, acting as a White House proxy, offered Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) a position within the administration if he backed out of the Senate race against Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).

As the segment neared a conclusion, Matthews played a clip from Limbaugh’s program earlier in the day (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Let`s take a look at Rush — I have to do this — Rush Limbaugh today impersonating Bill Clinton and assessing the situation. Let`s listen to Rushbo.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Oh dear!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I`m going to kiss your (EXPLETIVE DELETED) if you kiss my (EXPLETIVE DELETED). I`ll make sure that you — if you come groveling to me, I`ll be happy to help you out here. Now look at what has happened here, they go to Bill Clinton. He`s famous for getting people jobs. Monica Lewinsky offered a job at Revlon. She was offered a job at the United Nations. She didn`t take any of them. But they`ve got Bill Clinton. Isn`t it great, folks, that they found a guy who they know will commit perjury to carry the water here?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well sometimes even he can get it right. That was pretty good lampooning, I`ve got to say.

You gotta love Mitchell saying "Oh dear" when Matthews introduced the clip.

But what got into the Hardballer not only offering praise to a man that he routinely expresses contempt for, but also doing so when the object of his disaffection is mocking Bill Clinton?

Shocking to say the least. 

NBC Meet the Press anchor David Gregory appeared on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS on Tuesday night, and Smiley was outraged at Rand Paul for canceling on Gregory: "I was waiting for you to walk on the set, assuming that there would be steam coming out your ears, but I assume you calmed down now about Rand Paul canceling on you. How often does that happen, when people cancel on "Meet the Press?"

Gregory said a review found there’s only been three cancellations, the others by Louis Farrakhan and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia. Gregory said he thought the cancellation wasn’t personal, but was about Paul feeling overexposed. Smiley followed up: "But is there a lesson to learn, though, from that strategy of ducking the national press? Sounds Sarah-Palinesque, ducking the national media."

Smiley said this at a time when President Obama hadn’t held a full-blown press conference in more than 300 days. How is it only "Palinesque" to avoid the press? And doesn’t it make more sense for Palin to avoid the liberal media than the often-hallowed Barack Obama? Gregory added:

GREGORY: To be fair to him, he certainly hadn’t ducked it. It’s by not ducking it is what got him into all the trouble. I also want to say that there’s an aspect to Rand Paul that I think should be celebrated. We want politicians to come out and talk about what it is they believe, and it’s not as if he was caught unawares by this or that he was caught off-guard.

He has well-developed views about the role of the government. Now, a lot of people think that’s misguided, particularly as it relates to the Civil Rights Act, but he was even nuanced enough to say it was a title of the Civil Rights Act that he had a problem with.

So he knew what he was speaking about. The difficulty is in politics, when you get undisciplined like that, when you become that honest, you can get scrutinized and then it becomes a distraction. So Republicans said to him, "Don’t go on ‘Meet the Press,’ stop talking about this and get out of the national spotlight. Start talking about issues in Kentucky. That’s where you’ve got to win an election."

The White House press corps just loved President Obama’s press conference anecdote meant to prove the pressure he’s under and responsibility he’s taking (“When I woke up this morning, and I’m shaving and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says: ‘Did you plug the hole yet, daddy?’”). The ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts all showcased the clip, with fill-in ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos incorporating it into his lead:

Good evening. The buck stops with him. President Obama acknowledged today that the worst oil spill in American history is his crisis by quoting his daughter.

Earlier in the day, wrapping up ABC’s live coverage of the afternoon session, Stephanopoulos was “struck” by the soundbite: “Pretty clear what the President was trying to convey today, Jake [Tapper]. He is in charge. I was struck in that final answer he even brought Malia back into this.”

Back to Thursday night, CBS’s Chip Reid began his report by playing the bite, setting it up: “Well, Harry [Smith], if there’s one thing the President made clear today it’s that pressure to plug that hole is coming from everywhere.” Over on NBC, Chuck Todd introduced the video: “As if realizing he had not yet driven home the message that he came to the East Room to make, the President at the very end made it personal.”

(None of the ABC, CBS or NBC newscasts mentioned Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak’s admission the Obama White House last year offered him a high-level position if he would not run agaisnt Arlen Specter, a potential scandal raised by FNC’s Major Garrett in the final question.) 

Earlier Thursday: “On Hardball: Obama’s ‘Gut Moment’ with Daughter May Quiet Critics”

Two night’s ago, CBS and NBC dug deep to make Obama look concerned. My Tuesday night post, “Nets Dig Out ‘Plug the Damn Hole’ Quote to Buck Up ‘Frustrated’ Obama’s Credibility on Oil Spill,” recounted:

CBS and NBC on Tuesday night reached deep into a Washington Post story – specifically, the 20th paragraph of a 24-paragraph article – to pluck out a quote in order to demonstrate a “frustrated” President Barack Obama has been angry about the gulf oil spill. “A frustrated President Obama says ‘plug the damn hole,’” Katie Couric teased at the top of the CBS Evening News. She soon elaborated:

Frustration over the spill has been simmering for weeks, even in the Oval Office. We learned today that in the first days of this crisis an angry President Obama snapped at a meeting, quote: ‘Plug the damn hole.’ The President will head to the gulf coast on Friday, his second visit in about four weeks.

The NBC Nighty News plastered the quote on screen, as Brian Williams announced:

We also learn more today about the President’s frustration. A Washington Post article saying President Obama bluntly told an aide in the Oval Office: ‘Plug the damn hole.’ That hasn’t happened yet, but the President is heading back there Friday.

CNN.com’s opinion page has clearly sided with those supporting President Obama’s proposed repeal of the U.S. military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy barring open homosexuals from the ranks. During the first five months of 2010, the website has published four columns pushing for the repeal and none from supporters of the policy. Two came from the executive director of a homosexual activist group.

The first of the editorials on CNN’s website came on January 28, the day after the President’s State of the Union address. Alexander Nicholson, the executive director and founder of Servicemembers United, a "national organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans and their allies," praised Mr. Obama for doing "exactly what he should have done…in this venue" in making the repeal of the policy "a priority for his administration in 2010." He also labeled this call during the speech a "watershed moment." Later in the column, Nicholson disclosed that in 2002, "just six months after the September 11 attacks, I was honorably but involuntarily discharged" due to don’t ask, don’t tell.

CNN.com published a second column by the executive director on Thursday, titled "‘Don’t ask don’t tell’ deal is good for the country." Nicholson praised the recent deal "between the White House, the Pentagon, gay rights groups…and pro-repeal champions on Capitol Hill" as a "workable solution…[that] will get us where we need to go." He labeled the policy, which was codified into law by Congress during the 1990s, as "outdated and onerous."

The two other CNN.com columns in favor of the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell were also written by open homosexuals. Joan E. Darrah, a retired U.S. Navy captain, told of her "secret life under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’" in a February 4 column, outlining how she and her "partner" of 19 years "had learned to deal with the policy and make the requisite sacrifices." She later disclosed how "the events of September 11, 2001…caused me to appreciate fully the true impact of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell‘" on her life and that of her "partner." Darrah concluded that she has "great love and respect for our country, but I know we can do better than ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’"

L.Z. Granderson, a columnist for ESPN.com and an "out sportswriter for years," devoted most of his April 19 column beseeching President Obama to repeal the "unjust" policy. While Granderson praised Obama for his April 15 memo asking the Department of Health and Human Services to write a regulation barring hospitals from denying the visitations of same-sex "partners" of homosexual patients, he asked the Democrat to extend his "compassion and companionship" to homosexuals inside the military:

The discussion of "don’t ask, don’t tell" is more than who feels comfortable sleeping in the same barracks as a gay guy. And it shouldn’t be about strategizing when a demographic pawn should be moved in the partisan chess game that is Washington politics.

As you calculate the pros and cons of vigorously leading a repeal, I ask that you expand your equation to include the unjust toll this law has on the families of the men and women who voluntarily serve this country. Not just intellectualize, but allow your heart to truly empathize with the spouses and partners who do not get to hug or kiss their loved ones goodbye at the airport for what could be their last time together.

Close your eyes and feel the frustration of loved ones who recognize symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder but do not seek proper medical attention for their partner for fear of outing them. Allow your heart to feel for the children who lost a parent in a war zone but do not have access to the soldier’s long-term pension to help support them in their absence because, well, the military could not know the fallen soldier’s family even exists.

Like hospital visitation, don’t ask, don’t tell isn’t a gay rights issue, it’s a human rights issue. What is happening under your watch is no different from the times when black entertainers such as Gladys Knight or Otis Redding were not allowed to eat at the restaurants where they performed.

The cynic in me believes Thursday’s memo is just a crumb to quiet the gay community’s rumbling. The optimist in me still has the audacity to hope Washington hasn’t changed you.

While CNN.com has certainly reported on conservative opposition to the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell (such as their Wednesday article on the Family Research Center’s report highlighting "homosexual misconduct" inside the military and how overturning the DADT policy would result in its increase), it certainly seems like they can’t be bothered to ask supporters of the policy to contribute to their opinion section.

Both Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd were taken aback by Barack Obama delivering a "personal connection moment" in today’s press conference when he told reporters that his daughter Malia asked him: "Did you plug the hole yet, daddy?" Of the anecdote Matthews, on Thursday’s Hardball, exclaimed "Talk about a sound bite guys!" and declared he delivered "personally there, in a way he rarely does." Matthews went on to say it was remarkable that he’d reveal that private story in front of the press because he "hates us." For his part, NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd claimed the sharing of his "gut moment" may "calm down" some of the President’s critics. [audio available here]

The following exchange was aired on the May 27 Hardball:

(Begin clip)

BARACK OBAMA: My job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands, this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about. The spill. The, and it’s not just me, by the way. When I woke up this morning, and I’m shaving and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, "Did you plug the hole yet, daddy?"

(End clip)

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Welcome back to Hardball that was President Obama near the end of his press conference, about an hour into it. And boy was that a sound, talk about a sound bite guys! Did the President deliver? I’d say personally there, in a way he rarely does. Chuck Todd is NBC News’ White House correspondent and political director. And Newsweek’s Howard Fineman. Well okay you two pros. Here’s the question, President Obama is notoriously private, Chuck Todd. He hates the press’s, well he may hate us generally, but he hates our invasive-ness, period. That’s a fact.

CHUCK TODD: Right.

MATTHEWS: The fact that he resorted to that personal declaration about his family and his daughter bringing her in. I thought it was fine, I thought it was good. But what brought him to that point? Chuck?

TODD: You know it’s funny, it was almost as if a light bulb went off in his head as he – because the press conference was very, you know, he was having to talk about the law, that 1990 oil drilling law. And he kept having to cite it. He kept having to talk about the government’s relationship to BP and not be able to just beat up on BP maybe the way you would politically wish you could do in a moment like this. And it was as if he realized he wasn’t really connecting. And then all of a sudden, at the end there, with that entire, you know, "This is all I’m working on. I wake up, this is what I’m worrying about number one at this point." And then the moment with his daughter. I think it was, I don’t know if that quiets James Carville or if it totally satisfies and some others who’ve been upset down there but I gotta think that, that moment helps at least calm down Carville and some other critics a little bit. Because it was, that was more of a gut moment. It was more of a that’s, that personal connection moment that, you know, this guy has never been, it’s never been how he practices politics. He’s really more cerebral about these things.

Editor’s Note: the following originally appeared at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood.

When asked by Big Government to review Greg Gutfeld’s "The Bible of Unspeakable Truths," my response was instantaneous:  “Why me, Lord?”

Alas, we mere mortals can but abide His infinite wisdom – God’s not Gutfeld’s.  Resigned, I shouldered the onus of reading the late night jackanape’s scatological tome.  Afterwards, I showered…alone…in a hair shirt…and then burned it to commence my decontamination and atonement.

Oddly, no matter how hard I scoured his book and myself, the indelible fact remained – Gutfeld’s Unspeakable Truths is, in his idiosyncratic idiom, “Supersexyawesome!”

Oh, it’s not because of his solipsistic obsession with his weight, nasty habits, backrubs, pool boys, unicorns, backrubs from pool boys riding unicorns, or his feigned interest in Ms. Megan Fox, whom he importunes to call him.  [Ms. Fox:  Do NOT call Gutfeld.]  Rather, it’s because, at root, Gutfeld is a philosophical conservative mud wrestling with a chaotic world rife with inane Leftists, all of whom he endeavors to foist by their own petard (or by the trapeze set in his “rumpus room”).

Gutfeld’s eclectic, authentic conservatism stems from an unshakeable faith in his fellow Americans’ common sense ability to self-govern – of which, admittedly, he is the exception that proves the rule.  To wit, in his assay, “You’re Leading the Country Right Now,” Gutfeld chases to the cut:

“Let’s review the folks currently on the bad side of the White House:  …the Americans who stepped up to the plate…someone had to step up and say, ‘Hold on there, pal.’  And that someone is America.”

From this principled perch, the pithy miscreant tosses off a succinct obituary lamenting the demise of the last Republican majority:

“Republicans are losers because after fourteen years in power, all they stood for was their own power and complacency.  Democrats picked up seats not because suddenly America fell in love with liberalism.  The only idea Democrats had was this one:  We aren’t Republicans!  For now, that’s more than enough!”

Even to our calloused culture’s ears, does not Gutfeld’s elegy for a callow, discarded Republican “permanent majority” kindle the echoes of King Lear’s fool:  “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise”?

I didn’t think so either.

Yet that furry ball of vitriol’s fudge and Franzia-fueled animus is dumped not only upon his own ilk.  Gutfeld also figuratively (and, per court documents, literally) accosts the media, celebrities, hippies, greenies, pacifists, whales, and sundry other Leftist antagonists.  And, in a bold stroke for freedom, he condemns terrorists.  How outré!

Unlike other political pundits, however, Gutfeld’s whimsical dithyrambs rock precisely because he disdains the “talking head game,” in which some cunning hucksters portray themselves as an indispensible font of “THE TRUTH” and, coincidentally, are paid millions of dollars to protect you from exploitation by everyone – except them.  Again I ask you:  by couching conservative truths in comedic rags (i.e., the pages of Unspeakable Truths), does not Gutfeld play the fool to the GOP’s King Lear?

“But I will tarry; the fool will stay,

And let the wise man fly:

The knave turns fool that runs away;

The fool no knave, perdy.”

(If you don’t know what the archaic “perdy” means, best to assume it’s a good thing.)

For our pint-sized provocateur, therein lies the rub:  his conservative humor is sharp and hip – Republicanism with a human face.  Unfortunately, as with the 1980’s GOP Establishment’s less than enthused reception of P.J. O’Rourke’s seminal work Republican Party Reptile, today’s starchy-Cons react to Gutfeld’s Unspeakable Truths akin to how Red Eye fans would recoil at William Howard Taft in “the leg chair.”  (Au contraire, within his first five minutes on Red Eye, TR would stuff and mount Bill Schulz as an exotic wall hanging – “Bully!”)

Epitomizing the uncouth mirth that discomfits the Grand Old Party-Poopers, thrice in Unspeakable Truths the chubby vulgarian uncorks his heretofore little used weapon in the struggle to save America:  the lemur.

First, in “Even Liberals Will Do What They Can to Get out of Paying Taxes,” Gutfeld pimps the marsupial to castigate liberals’ for their hypocrisy regarding taxation:

“Had (the Rolling Stones) paid the usual amount (meaning what every other British citizen [sic – Brits are subjects of the crown; where’s Andy Levy the one time you need him?] who buys their crappy CD pays), it would have been roughly 180 million bucks.  Which is what Mick Jagger spends on collagen injections (culled from a rare breed of albino alpaca) and his lemur farm.  He eats a live one every morning for breakfast, you know.”  [Sir Mick:  Do NOT call Gutfeld.]

Next, in “Panda’s Want Nothing to Do with Us, or With Pandas, for That Matter,” Gutfeld then has something to do with Pandas and lemurs to render an indictment against anthropomorphism:

“Look, if I was drunk and at the zoo, attacking a panda would not be my first choice.  I am more a fan of lemurs, simply because they look an awful lot like Jude Law.  All one of those marsupials needs is a scarf, and it is the splitting image of the British actor.”  [Mr. Law:  Do NOT call Gutfeld.)

Then, in an obvious case of hating what one can’t have, a frenzied Gutfeld delivers the fiendish coup de grace to celebrity in general during his screed, “It’s Our Job to Tell Celebrities When It’s Time to Retire”:

“Am I not alone in thinking that she should retire from public view and get a job as a real estate agent?  [Gutfeld then describes a depraved act in a workmanlike fashion.]  This is a common fantasy I have with real estate agents.  It actually doesn’t have to include Tara Reid (feel free to substitute ‘lemur’).”  [Ms. Reid and Mr. Lemur:  Do NOT call Gutfeld.]

Now, the questions which beg answers:  what is a lemur and why does Gutfeld love them (platonically, we pray)?

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition of 2008, the lemur is a lower primate inhabiting Madagascar.  The “monkeylike” Lemur has long limbs, a bushy tail, pointed muzzle, large eyes and its second toes have “a stout claw.”  An agile animal, the rude beast grows to be roughly 4 feet in length and, when not foraging in trees or on the ground, the lemur “engage(s) in social grooming.”  Bye the bye, the lemur is “active both by day and by night”; eats “leaves, fruits, eggs, and insects and other small animals”; and “some build nests of leaves and branches in trees.”

Now we wind the miasmatic scent of the unspeakable truth behind Gutfeld’s lemur fever.  Verily, it is the most unspeakable truth that is so unspeakably true it could not be included in Unspeakable Truths for fear it might unwittingly become a spoken unspeakable truth by a Red Eye fan whose lips move when he reads (namely, Rep. Jack Kingston).  This unspeakable truth is…

Gutfeld is a lemur!

But he’s not just any lemur.  He’s flown (coach).  Hence, Gutfeld is a flying lemur!

Again, ala Algore on global warming, the Columbia Encyclopedia “ends the debate”:  “The flying lemur is brownish or grayish above and paler below…  The animal (glides) from tree to tree; (so) the flying lemur does not truly fly…  It sleeps by day and forages at dusk.  Flying lemurs…belong to an order of their own.”

Yes, the ordering of one’s soul:  the foundation of all self-government; and the ultimate protection against the siren song of big government.  No, I didn’t glean this insight from Unspeakable Truths, unless Gutfeld plagiarized Aristotle’s Unmentionable Musings for Hellenic Lemurs.

What I did catch from my prolonged exposure to Unspeakable Truths is this syllogism, which can’t be cured with penicillin:

Gutfeld is a lemur and a conservative;

I read Gutfeld’s “Lemur-Con” book The Bible of Unspeakable Truths without retching or regret (mostly); ergo,

That “Mini-Me” version of Dr. Moreau, Gutfeld, turned me into a “Lemur-Con”!

You’ve been warned….

Most probably wouldn’t think of Rolling Stone magazine as a primary source for information on something like financial regulation reform. However, if you listen to some of the left-wing talking heads like Ezra Klein, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi is in the know on major policy issues.

So how do Taibbi and the other folks at Rolling Stone keep their readers interested in a topic that wouldn’t suit their usual demographic? They do so with "insults" according to Taibbi.

In the May 26 issue of Rolling Stone, Taibbi’s article, "Wall Street War," lamented the impact lobbyists in Washington, D.C. have had on the legislative process of the financial regulation reform. And in order to keep readers interested, he painted Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., as a villain with a degree of insult:

Dodd worked overtime trying to craft a "bipartisan" bill with the Republican minority – in particular with Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the committee. With his dyed hair, porcine trunk and fleshy, powdery-white face, Shelby recalls an elderly sumo wrestler in drag. I happened to be in the Senate on the day that Shelby proposed a substitute amendment that would have stuffed the CFPB into the FDIC, effectively scaling back its power and independence. Throughout the debate, I was struck by the way that Dodd and his huge black caterpillar eyebrows kept crossing the aisle to whisper in Shelby’s ear. During these huddles, Dodd would gently pat Shelby’s back or hold his arm; it was like watching a love scene in a Japanese monster movie.

Taibbi appeared on the Fox Business Network’s "Imus in the Morning" program, where host Don Imus heaped praise upon him. Imus applauded Taibbi for making the uninteresting, interesting: 

IMUS: Seventeen until the hour, talking with Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone magazine about this financial reform bill which I can barely, barely pay attention to.
TAIBBI: That’s one of the problems. I mean, it’s that – It’s so confusing that nobody is really interested in it except, you know – all the richest people in the world are desperately interested in it.
IMUS:  I can only read your articles because, and it sounds like I’m patronizing you and I’m obviously not, but, only because you’re willing to write colorful – in a colorful manner and assign icky names to these various people, including a-holes and so it makes it – I can’t wait for your book on this, because it makes it – I mean, the guy who came up with vampire squid, I mean, is worth reading about this financial mess but the problem is, not only does it make my neck and hair hurt, it makes everybody’s, as you just said.

But how did Taibbi pull this feat off?  According to Taibbi, with inserting more insults at the behest of his editors:

TAIBBI: I know. We actually had that problem with this article … My editors actually asked me to insert more insults in there, so I described Richard Shelby as – I said he looked like an elderly sumo wrestler in drag in this, in this one. There’s a few of those in there.
IMUS: Name calling – that’s our level.
TAIBBI: It’s a beautiful thing.
IMUS: It is a beautiful thing.

One has to wonder what’s next, cap-and-trade legislation analysis from Taibbi with fart jokes?