I never really thought I’d ever feel sorry for Scooter Libber, but this is pretty rough:

In the nearly six weeks since his close friend and former chief of staff was convicted of lying and obstructing an investigation, Vice President Dick Cheney has not once spoken to I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Why?

“Well, there hasn’t been occasion to do so,” Cheney said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

…

Cheney’s interviewer, Bob Schieffer, was so surprised to hear that news that he asked the vice president about it again.

Why not calls to express your regrets?

“I just - I haven’t had occasion to do that,” was all that Cheney would say.

I realize Cheney may be eager to put the sandal behind him, but you’d think he’d be able to at least write his old buddy a quick little thank you note. Something easy:

Scoot man,

Sorry we had to throw you to the Wolves, there! At least I didn’t shoot you in the face.

Thanks for taking the fall. You the man.

Keep it really real, son.

Dick and Lynn

That’s all it takes.

In the wake of Don Imus’s recent firing, many comparison’s have been drawn between his racially charged, sexist remarks and the misogynistic nature of contemporary commercial rap music. Even Barack Obama had his own mini Sister Souljah moment as he drew the comparison in response to a question posed at a recent campaign event:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday questioned the way some rappers talk about women in songs, saying the lyrics are similar to the derogatory language used by fired radio talk show host Don Imus.

“We’ve got to admit to ourselves, that it was not the first time that we heard the word ‘ho,’ Obama told a crowd of about 1,200 at a fundraising dinner for the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus in Columbia. “Turn on the radio station. There are a whole lot of songs that use the same language … we’ve been permitting it in our homes, and in our schools and on iPods.”

It’s a fair point, though I think the criticism of rampant hip hop misogyny is a somewhat separate issue from what has be going down in the whole Imus affair.

Don Imus managed to say something that was both incredibly sexist and insanely racist. That’s no easy task (though, as Media Matters has carefully tabulated, not a sin of which Imus is solely guilty). But, when it comes down to it, it’s the racism that got Imus into trouble.

The misogyny of Imus’ remarks certainly pales in comparison to what comes out of some commercial hip hop today; Imus, after all, isn’t the one “looking for a slut with a nice butt to get a nut” or observing “bitch ya’ pussy smell like Pepé le Pew.” But the racial slur incoporated into his “nappy headed hos” comment is really non-comparable to anything in hip hop. Snoop Dogg referring to a black woman as a “ho” is incredibly sexist, indeed, but not at all racist; Snoop is not disparaging her race from a perch of racial privilege. Imus, on the other hand, with his “nappy headed” qualifier, was doing just that, an “old-ass white man that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls,” as Snoop himself put it. Whether Imus is an actual racist or not, it is that blatant racial insensitivity that ultimately cost him his job.

Criticizing hip hop for it’s rampant misogyny is a justified and worthwhile endeavor (though it should not obscure the fact that true hip hop, in its purest form, is essentially the greatest thing to ever happen to United States of America). But to imply that Imus has been fired due to the result of a modern day double standard really misses an important nuance to his oh-so-not-nuanced comment.

Matt Yglesias points to a great Slate article regarding President Bush’s search for a “War Czar.” From Slate:

Actually, there’s another official who, as Baker and Ricks describe the job, has the “authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department, and other agencies.” He’s called the president of the United States.

Once again, The Onion beats reality by a little over a year:
Bush To Appoint Someone To Be In Charge Of Country:

“During these tumultuous times, America is in need of a bold, resolute person who can get the job done,” said Bush during a press conference Monday. “My fellow Americans, I assure you that I will appoint just such a person with all due haste.”

An interesting post on TV Squad drew my attention to this Jimmy Kimmel clip on YouTube in which he goes to town on a Gawker.com editor for the site’s supposed “slanderous” and “libelous” content (Gawker responds here):

As TV Squad described it:

Jimmy Kimmel was guest host on Larry King Live on Friday night, and the topic was gossip, celebrity stalking, and the various celeb mags and web sites. Though usually irreverent, Kimmel was dead serious about confronting Gould about the many false or mistaken sightings that readers (or as Gould calls them, “citizen journalists,” gag) sent into Gawker Stalker.

Kimmel’s concern with Gawker and, it would appear, blogs in general, really seems to stem from a common uneasiness with a lack of authority in these very public institutions. Blogs don’t operate under strict journalistic hierarchal standards—no fact checking, no corporate accountability, blah blah blah—and that’s upsetting to some because the result can often be chaotic and unpredictable.

It’s the same beef some folks have with Wikipedia; the site can’t possibly be more than a joke (as the writers of The Office apparently believe) cause regular people are simply incapable of developing and creating something worthwhile without a solid authoritative hierarchy put in place (no editorial board, no collection of “experts,” etc.).

But there’s a big difference between a blog and a newspaper, a Wikipedia entry and a peer-reviewed research paper, and it’s a difference people recognize.

People don’t need the authority. The lack of hierarchal structure behind blogs and Wikipedia is an entirely positive thing; it provides for a more fluid and open exchange of ideas and information, one in which the public becomes naturally more skeptical of the things they read. We no longer need to rely on a blind allegiance to “objective facts” gleaned from one information source. Now we’re all, “I saw it on Gawker” or “I read it on Wikipedia” rather than “It’s true! It’s true!”

The public is a lot more savvy with what they read than we’re often given credit for (as discussed recently) and our increasing skepticism amid a growing cacophony of voices only aids the savvy-ness, providing for a better informed, more dicerning populace.

Some pertinent thoughts on the life and work of Kurt Vonnegut:

The time to read Vonnegut is just when you begin to suspect that the world is not what it appears to be. He is the indispensable footnote to everything everyone is trying to teach you, the footnote that pulls the rug out from under the established truths being so firmly avowed in the body of the text.

Rest in peace, friend. And thank you.

Oh, and here is a drawing of an asshole.

I’m glad it’s gotten to this:

Amid the outcry over his on-air racial slur last week, shock jock Don Imus said Thursday that he had “apologized enough” and that he will not go on “some talk show tour.”

“I’m not going to go talk to Larry King or Barbara Walters or anyone else.”

Racist dudes are racist jerks, no doubt, but the now mandatory apology parade that comes after explicit expressions of that racism just drags these stories out to obnoxious lengths.

Imus made a racist comment, he should rightfully be fired, he should apologize to those he offended, and that should be it. I don’t want to have to hear the phrase “nappy headed hos” ten times a day for the next three weeks. Fire the guy and get it over with.

I have to go ahead and echo Andrew Sullivan’s embrace of Snoop’s eloquent condemnation of Don Imus:

“It’s a completely different scenario. [Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about ho’s that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing shit, that’s trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them muthafuckas say we in the same league as him.”

Well said, Mr. D O Double G.

Coincidentally, you gotta love a news item that includes the track list of an upcoming album and whose subhead reads:

MC says radio host’s racially inflammatory comments shouldn’t be compared to rap lyrics; The Big Squeeze due April 24.

CNN gets down to the nitty gritty with some hard hitting news:

Two airliners had to circle for 18 minutes and a plane ferrying human lungs for transplant was briefly delayed Friday while an airport’s lone air traffic controller took a bathroom break, the controller’s union said.

It’s gotta be pretty harsh to have CNN publish the length of your poo right there on their website.

Jack Shafer joins in the chorus of criticism against David Sedaris for embellishing aspects of his non-fiction:

Sedaris and company want to erect a penumbra that shields humorists from criticism when they blend fiction into their nonfiction but still insist on calling it nonfiction. The logic behind this is difficult to follow. If writing fiction is the license Sedaris and other nonfiction humorists need to get at “larger truths,” why limit this exemption to humorists? Let reporters covering city hall, war, and business to embellish and exaggerate so they can capture “larger truths,” too.

As editor of a popular online magazine, I recognize Shafer may be wary of fabricated non-fiction. But there’s a difference between embellishing situations in a humorous personal memoir and publishing an article about a guy who fishes for monkeys.

Reporters “covering city hall, war, and business” are writing as means of delivering factual information to their readers; they traffic in facts and we read their work (hopefully with a healthy dose of skepticism) in order to draw our own conclusions about the state of the world.

The writers of personal memoirs, on the other hand, present the conclusions up front, trafficking in something greater than the mere sum of the real-life minutia of their lives. It doesn’t matter to me if Sedaris’s brother never really referred to himself as The Rooster; I’m ok with some slight embellishment so long as it allows Sedaris to write, “Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can’t kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up sometimes, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I’m saying?”

If the writing’s good, then, fuck it, it doesn’t much matter where it came from, I’m just happy it’s out there. You know what I’m saying?

Memoirs don’t deliver facts, they deliver something much bigger: personal truth and stories of life that are consumed more like fiction than like dry news. Sure, memoirs may be popular because readers feel a closer connection to stuff that actually happened to someone else. But all great memoirists, from Sedaris back to Mark Twain, are really just great story tellers. And, as anyone who has ever told a story to anyone else will know, you gotta editorialize just a bit, otherwise it’s just not worth telling.

I’d like to think most readers of personal non-fiction are savvy enough to be satisfied with that.

Wikipedia runs a pretty solid Featured Article of the Day program, but sometimes the best entries don’t really make the cut. For that reason, I think it’s appropriate to begin highlighting some of wikipedia’s unsung heroes.

This week’s article: a comprehensive list of Fictional US Presidents. I stopped counting once I got to over 60 and I was still in the Ds, but I’m guessing there’s over 300 characters listed here, everyone from Jed Bartlett to Pete Ross.

A sample:

President Johnny Cyclops

President in: Whoops Apocalypse (television, 1982)

Qualities/attributes: A former screen actor, recently lobotomised. Hated at home and desperate to regain popularity. With other world leaders, starts World War III and resulting nuclear holocaust. Often depicted as being a puppet controlled by his security advisor, the Deacon. Possibly based on Ronald Reagan, as he is a Republican and he has a bad relationship with his son.

Played by: Barry Morse

Party: Republican

Wikipedia tends to get dumped on as some sort of illegitimate information resource (criticism which is 1000% lame bullshit). But these types of articles are what the site is made for; no other information resource would ever come close to even approximating the depth of this information.

Go ‘head Mr. Wikipedia!

After devoting the past month to back episodes of The Wire, it’s tough to return to mere-mortal television. But Lost is still a pretty good show (this season’s “buried alive” episode notwithstanding).

While Lost is all up in that internet ish like whoosey-whats-it, this is something I hadn’t seen before: a blog by Lost stuntwoman Heather Poohs, double for Evangeline Lilly’s Kate.

I didn’t realize stunt people had agents. (Or blogs).

The Onion gets to the heart of cultural bias in standardized testing:

“And in our new, expanded essay section, we ask test-takers to solve disputes among servants, describe what it was like to attend their first polo match, and identify the important settlor and beneficiary characters in a fictional trust fund.”

Beautiful.

Brings me back to a fourth grade math aptitude test, where me and my fellow New Hampshire country-bumpkin classmates tripped up on a word problem involving calculations of city blocks. Cause when you live on a farm in the middle of the woods three miles from your closest neighbor, what the hell is a city block?

I think the teacher ended up changing the question to one about moccasins and kayaks.