I started this season of “Big Love” the way I do most HBO series runs in the post-“Wire,” post-“Sopranos” age — hopeful but prepared to be disappointed. And, to be sure, this chronicle of polygamy-on-the-DL-in-the-suburbs hasn’t been all that. The ratio of soap opera-like plot developments to the less flashy, more interesting glimpses of the human heart has been a bit lopsided, but OK, it’s television. And there’s a reason soap operas run for years and years — it’s always fun to check in on others’ action-packed lives.
But beyond the soapy stuff (writers, I saw Sarah’s miscarriage coming like a brass band), the show is still finding the sorts of stories that make HBO’s native series so much better than Showtime’s. Things are building to a climax in the world of Bill Henrickson and his extended family, and it’s fun to watch.
At this point I should probably note some spoilers are coming. You’ve been warned.
One theme, this season, has been how Bill’s choice to take additional wives has affected and compromised those women, as well as others who come in contact with them. His life is a wreck. All three of his wives are miserable and coping in their own ways. A fourth entered and left the family in a matter of hours. His business partner, also multiply wed, saw two of his brides run off together, a payoff we’ve been waiting for since season one, when a single shot of them playing footsie under a card table suggested they had their own special bond. And the poison is seeping into his children — a pregnant teenage daughter, a son in love with wife No. 3, a tween girl up to various nefarious activities. The more recent children, those of wives two and three, are too young to raise much hell, but their day is surely coming.
The early season questions were mainly about how the sex stuff works. This season, Bill lost a whole bottle of Viagra down the bathroom sink drain, which left him suggesting an evening of cuddling to wife No. 2, but she’s already got his number — what really makes Bill’s dick hard are his various business interests, all of which seem to involve high-wire negotiations, slamming doors and blood oaths.
But this week was an emotional payoff of sorts. Bill, who has been groping toward an understanding that polygamy has a truly evil side (don’t expect him to grasp that he’s part of the problem, not for a few more seasons, anyway), will have to confront it directly, now that his sister-in-law-to-be has had her neck broken, fleeing a forced marriage to a truly insane FLDS “prophet” and his transgendered first wife, and…
I told you it got a little soapy from time to time.
Anyway, this episode was the best of the season, as each wife digs into her personal hell and shores up the bunker walls. First wife Barb is even more the bullying boss lady. Second wife Nikki finds, for the first time in her life, a man she actually wants to have sex with. Third wife Margene, the current baby factory, is overwhelmed by the cacophony of children’s voices she endures all day and dreams of trips to the grocery store. Meanwhile, back at the Juniper Creek compound, Hollis Green stirs his creepy stew, and caught in the middle is poor FLDS pawn Kathy, the bride-to-be, with her signature braid delivering the death blow after a brief flight to freedom. Will it dawn on Bill, the part he plays in all this female misery? Of course not. But that’s why it’s fun to watch.
Discuss, if you like.
Or, we can continue to talk about Rush Limbaugh. I wonder how much those Dominican prostitutes charged him. I figure he had to hide C-notes in his flab rolls and let them go exploring. Some things just cannot be expected at market prices.
I leave you with a joke I heard the other day: One of these things is not like the others: Herpes, AIDS, gonorrhea, a house in Detroit. Can you tell which one? The answer is: Gonorrhea, because you can get rid of that.
It’s important to keep a sense of humor in dark times. Remember that.
Peter said on March 3, 2009 at 10:05 am
And here’s another old joke: What’s the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
None – they’re both big facist gasbags.
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Catherine said on March 3, 2009 at 10:17 am
On Big Love, look for my nephews playing Wanda’s and Joey’s baby. Don’t blink…
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 10:28 am
I can’t participate in any HBO-related discussions. We dropped our premium service to save some money, plus without “The Sopranos,” “Deadwood” and “Rome,” I saw much less reason to subscribe. I do miss the Bill Maher program, but otherwise, it’s no biggie.
Regarding Rush Limbaugh, perhaps he’s in the same kind of cocoon we often accuse our elected officials of living within. He’s hailed as a hero by the CPAC attendees. His audience and callers reflect his overall outlook on life. Thus, he receives all kinds of positive feedback 24/7, but it’s from an increasingly smaller part of the American population. Otherwise, he might stop to notice that a lot of citizens are moving on from the rancorous years that defined the Clinton and W. administrations. We’re looking for solutions now, not the blame game.
Limbaugh’s dig at Newt Gingrich, his sneering dismissal of Republicans doing some heavy lifting by developing new proposals and policies, are instructive. This is not someone who really cares about governing philosophy. This is someone who worships only raw, naked power and who delights in the cult of personality, whether it’s Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.
There are some commentators who believe President Obama and his spokespeople are “elevating” Limbaugh by talking about him by name. I disagree. Limbaugh already is the top-rated talk show host. He’s already elevated. More importantly, the guy is the plus-size Sarah Palin in his ability to drive away all but the true believers. It’s good to attach Rush and the Republicans at the hip because it ensures moderates and independents will continue to give the GOP wide berth. . .as wide as Limbaugh’s post-pilondial ass.
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Dorothy said on March 3, 2009 at 10:28 am
Yeah the miscarriage was pretty much inevitable. I’m sad about Kathy’s demise, though. She was positively ethereal. Which made her much too good for that family. I keep wondering when Wanda or Lois are going to get their comeuppance. But they’re so much fun to watch. They’re among the most creative characters in the family!
BTW – why is Bruce Dern’s character name Frank Harlow, but wife no. 1 is Lois Henrickson? That’s what the HBO website is showing.
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Gasman said on March 3, 2009 at 10:32 am
What never ceases to amaze me is that the conservatives continue to position the Porcine Oracle at the head of the line as their official/unofficial spokesturd. The sanctimonious bible thumpers gleefully anoint Lord Lardass, possibly the most amoral reprobate in recent history, as the voice of conservative virtue. When he isn’t gobbling Oxycontin by the handful, he is jetting off to the Dominican Republic to help bring his own stimulus package to that nation’s prostitution industry. What is not clear is whether if his package was stimulating adults or children. No matter, for he is the Chosen One to carry their holy banners forth.
If any brave soul would have the temerity to criticize Limbaugh for his excessive excesses, they are humiliated and browbeaten into a public acts of contrition and submission before the almighty Corpulent Pervert.
But after all, he is their most noted constitutional scholar. He pointed out during his CPAC keynote address that the Constitution guarantees, “Life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.” And the uninformed masses on the right just keep on cheering in ignorant bliss.
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Jason T. said on March 3, 2009 at 10:46 am
Peter, I heard that punchline as, “one’s a flaming Nazi gasbag, and the other one’s a zeppelin.”
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 10:55 am
Gasman,
Our friends on the right like to proclaim that the Pride of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is simply their answer to Michael Moore or Daily Kos. Ho, ho, ho. For good or ill, there is nothing like El Rushbo on our side of the aisle. Can you imagine Moore or Kos calling a high-profile Democrat out for a tongue-lashing, then seeing the Democrat offer a whimpering apology for offending them? Please.
Rahm Emmanuel is correct. Jabba the Nut is the face of the party. And that’s a great, great thing. So long as this porky social misfit is the public face of the Grand Old Party, what exactly can the GOP do? Let’s put this big tub of goo to work for us. You can fundraise like crazy off the creep and continue to marginalize the rightwing zombies who lurch along behind him.
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ROgirl said on March 3, 2009 at 10:59 am
On criticizing Rush, didn’t Michael Steele refer to him as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary,” and was later forced into an apology of sorts because of all the umbrage generated?
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Peter said on March 3, 2009 at 11:16 am
Jason T, that’s a much better punchline – thanks for the assist.
As for Mr. Steele – how humiliating was that? At least the good news is that Obama won’t have to worry about the mid-terms – the GOP should still be in freefall by then.
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Sue said on March 3, 2009 at 11:21 am
“Until this moment, senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness …. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
Things will turn around for the Republican party when someone within the party
utters the Rush Limbaugh equivalent of the above quote and gets the equivalent reaction. It is coming, it will happen and at that time Dems would do well to understand that the Republicans are on the ascendancy again.
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brian stouder said on March 3, 2009 at 11:39 am
On a much brighter note, my exceptionally lovely wife gave me a piece of news this morning, that may or may not interest one or more of us NN.cers;
If you are inclined to go see Laura Lippman when she has a “conversation in Carmel” (which just sounds marvelous, no?), note: the $40 ticket price has been reduced to $0. (she had already promised to provide $15 worth of entertainment, so now it’s all gravy in Carmel)
The event is being held at a public library, and the library decided to maximize the number of people who might attend – the economy being wobbly and all.
So there’s your hot tip of the day
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Jason T. said on March 3, 2009 at 11:40 am
Peter, that’s why I’m known as the Slappy White of North Dravosburg.
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 11:49 am
Sue,
I wish you were correct, but I see no one who will stand up and speak out. Newt Gingrich (ugh!) probably has the standing to take on El Rushbo, but he has been silent since CPAC. Otherwise, who? None of the potential presidential candidates are going to make a peep. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner aren’t. For all their macho posturing, national Republicans generally are sissies and wimps when it comes to challenging orthodoxy.
You have to bore down to the state level to find tough Republicans because that’s where the rubber meets the road. It did not make a big splash when he said it, but Utah’s Republican governor, Jon Huntsman, recently declared Congressional Republicans “inconsequential” and lacking in any sort of new ideas or direction.
Think about that for a moment. The GOP governor of one of the reddest, most conservative states in the nation, admitted he pays no attention whatsoever to McConnell, Boehner and the other lotion boys in D.C.
We live in a time of pygmies, Sue. There are no old lions like Barry Goldwater or Everett Dirksen, who were instrumental in arguing President Nixon into resigning for the good of the nation. (Believe me, I am not suggesting the Democrats on a national level are any better. I dislike both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.)
The GOP is underwater, but until the party settles into the muck at 20,000 leagues under the sea, until even the most rabid partisan sees that the party’s prospects are nil under its current outlook and direction, until voters even in the Deep South start punishing these idiots, there is little hope the party will rise to be the loyal opposition again.
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del said on March 3, 2009 at 11:56 am
Jason, that was hilarious.
Peter, agreed about Limbaugh’s name being mentioned. It hurts the GOP when Limbaugh’s referenced by name. And you’re right, I think, that he “delights in the cult of personality.”
ROgirl, yes.
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Sue said on March 3, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Jeff Borden, I understand that right now the Republican party is sunk, but my point, not well made I guess, is that it cannot last. That quote would not be so famous today if it had not been followed by applause. It was one of the signals of the beginning of the end for McCarthy. Each party takes its turn as the laughingstock, and the Dems have certainly had their share of time in that limelight. The current Republican situation is an extreme case and I admit I’m enjoying it as much as every other non-Republican who has been appalled by the events of the last 4 – 8 years. But the Republicans will come around and I hope long-range planning in the Democratic party addresses this. There will be another Reagan, and when that happens, those Republicans who are currently stewing both at their leadership and at Rush will be out in force. And they will have learned from Obama.
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Good points all, Sue. It will take an electoral humiliation before the creepy old farts who work the controls of the GOP let go. And I think that is very likely to happen in 2012.
Meanwhile, a little joke:
What is the difference between a pigeon and an investment banker?
The pigeon can still make a deposit on a new Mercedes.
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ROgirl said on March 3, 2009 at 1:32 pm
If Rush were a politician, I suppose it could be said that while he has a very strong base, his coattails are really, really short at this time. In other words, he stirs up the fanatics, but everyone else has moved on. Granted, the fanatics are pretty much all that’s left of the Republican party these days.
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Gasman said on March 3, 2009 at 1:41 pm
The best non-Olbermann smackdown of Limbaugh to date comes from Letterman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXr7rqqeIzI
He was speaking to Katie Couric last night – who, if you watch the entire interview, comes off as a very naive twit – and Dave attacked Limbaugh with just the right derisive, mocking tone.
The Porcine Oracle is no anomaly within the Republican tent; he is fairly representative of the caustic bile which constitutes their message. To wit:
1. The lunatic rantings of the Shrill Harpy Ann Coulter, whose moronic babblings are legion in number. Most of them are insanely ludicrous, many of them are offensive. She was a featured speaker at CPAC.
2. The demented shrieks coming from Alan Keyes. His Chicken Little cries of a socialist coup de grace upon our Constitution might be best explained by an advanced case of untreated syphilis.
3. Rep. Michele Bachman’s nearly incomprehensible bleating on nearly any subject. Her call for neo-McCarthyist style investigations into the loyalties of D members of congress is my personal favorite. She served as emcee for a panel discussion at CPAC.
4. The chorus of Republican no-men who’ve called President Obama a socialist or communist. Boilerplate fresh from the mid 1950s.
5. O’Reilly, Beck, Hannity (he gets singled out for special mention below), and the others among the mendacious cloud of conservative bloviators. They are so unconcerned with facts that it would be laughable were their calls for sedition not so dangerous.
6. The calls for outright violence:
a. Sen. Mike DeMint of S.C. who calls for open rebellion against the Constitution. Sen. Demented might want to review his U.S. history and acquaint himself with how the last such rebellion from his state turned out. Especially loathsome coming from a sitting United States Senator. At what point is such talk treasonous?
b. Sean Hannity, whose website contained a poll that asked supplicants what was the best way to wage revolution against the Constitution.
c. Joe the Dumb-ass Plumber, who while at CPAC was reminiscing about the days of yore when it was acceptable to shoot members of congress who badmouth the troops. (Never mind that NOBODY has spoken ill of the troops, in what year was it acceptable to shoot congressmen, or anyone else, for any reason?)
7. The overtly racist attacks on President Obama from all levels of the party. Whether it’s “Obama Bucks,” watermelons on the White House lawn, or rollicking choruses of “Barrack the Magic Negro,” there seems to be no end of mirth stirred within the conservative bosom when “darkey” jokes abound.
See, the antics of Lord Lardass don’t even figure into the above list. He is a single, but corpulent cog in their nasty political machine. It is not enough for the Republican Party to distance itself from Mount Limbaugh, they must purge themselves of the pissy obstructionism, the open racism, and the vile outright treason that has come to represent the totality of their message.
Limbaugh is but a symptom of what ails the Republican party. Until they address the underlying disease, they will continue to drive away the majority of the American electorate.
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Dwight said on March 3, 2009 at 1:55 pm
1. The President you love and admire admits to doing Cocaine. (Or at least William Ayres added that in when he wrote Obama’s autobiography and Obama didn’t edit it out). I know the politics of personal destruction is the first sword the Strawman Brigade draws when they can’t go toe-to-toe with a more coherent message, but c’mon. Have a little self respect, wouldja? Going to the “druggie” well on Limbaugh’s prescription painkiller abuse will getcha on the express elevator to Hypocrite Hell.
2. Part of me admires your concern for the moral turpitude of our elected leaders. Tell you what, Dwight will make you a deal. You deal with the sitting senator who left his girlfriend to asphyxiate in the air bubble of a submerged car because he ran to the family lawyer instead of calling the cops. Then deal with the former president and current Democrat senior spokesperson who raped a woman in the oval office. THEN come and show me your indignity that a single filthy rich dude is banging hookers. I will listen then. I promise.
3. You guys really REALLY don’t want to do this. It sounds like a good strategy on the surface, but it’s really not. When the president reaches down and elevates Limbaugh onto a national stage in order to debate him, it isn’t going to turn out exactly like you think. Mr. Teleprompter and his functionally retarded sidekick simply cannot go toe-to-toe with a guy who has spent the last 20 years talking out his values (without a script) for 3 hours a day.
Right now Limbaugh is an icon. A mostly pejorative icon. The last thing you want is for him to be elevated to a national stage where his values will get a more public airing and folks who only know him as a pejorative icon will have another opportunity to process his message.
You will lose the middle.
There was roughly a seven point victory for Obama in the last election. In a two party contest, that’s equates to 3.5% of the populace switching positions. Limbaugh as an “official” nationalized spokesperson can move 3.5% of the swing vote population who had henceforth ignored him.
Remember that Ol’ Dwight tried to warn you. You want Limbaugh ignored by the national media. The media desperately wants to ignore him. (Believe it or not, LIMBAUGH wants to be ignored and just make his obscene amounts of money and get back to his hookers.) But when Gibbs keeps making Limbaugh the story, the fer-him-or-again’-him litmus test… Beware the side effects. Limbaugh’s carefully articulated message will be heard.
(And the fact that his message is getting traction despite the MSM editing the conditional “IF Obama wants to socialize this country” away from “I hope he fails!”… This should concern you as well.)
The Conservatives had no leaders and fuck if you dumb sonsabitches didn’t hand them one.
Facepalm.
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Dwight said on March 3, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Gasman, there’s a world of difference between the second-tier conservative spokespeople and Limbaugh.
Coulter is too in love with her own pseudo-clever-crafted snark to be taken seriously.
Hanity is a brainless fucktard who can’t articulate anything beyond a list of seven talking points provided to him by GOPAC.
Beck is an entertainer. A good one, but an entertainer. He’s only as political as he has to be to keep his spot on conservative radio stations, and his heart just isn’t in the political debate.
Limbaugh will eat the lunch of your most articulate Liberal in a debate. I’m sorry. Obviously you don’t listen to him, or you’d understand what you were up against. I haven’t listened to Limbaugh in 10 years, but once I saw his CPAC speech I remembered why he is such a threat to weak cheese, bumper sticker Liberal logic, if you’ll pardon the oxymoron.
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LA Mary said on March 3, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Dwight, if you think Rush is promoting anything other than Rush Limbaugh, you are naive. He has no accountability and he knows he can make money with the stuff he spews. It’s uptight white guy political porn.
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Gasman said on March 3, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Dwight,
Wow. What rhetorical brilliance! You’ve convinced me! The fact the Limbaugh abused prescription drugs makes it all right! Who cares that he didn’t have actually have a prescription. I guess junkies only use meth, crack, or heroin not the wholesome and virtuous Oxycontin. Silly me.
It’s not about Limbaugh! It’s the whole damn party! The mendacity, idiocy, racism, and treason abound without Lord Lardass!
It also isn’t Gibbs making the Porcine Oracle the story, it’s Michael Steele supplicating himself before Limbaugh that is the story. Who amongst the right can speak ill of Lord Lardass without fear and trembling?
No matter how much you whine, bitch and moan, the Republicans are moribund and without adult supervision. They will continue to founder until they offer up something other than that which I chronicled above.
Try and spin and minimize the numbers by which President Obama and the Dems. won nationally all you want. The Rs got their asses kicked. This is as a historic a political sea change as any in recent history. No amount of venom you spew will change that.
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brian stouder said on March 3, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Limbaugh will eat the lunch of your most articulate Liberal in a debate.
Really?
Do you really believe this?
I believe I’d buy a ticket to see a moderated debate between him and even a middlin’-articulate “Liberal”, let alone an A-lister like Katrina Vandenhuevel (pardon my spelling) or even a moderate such as Eugene Robinson.
But I’ve never seen or heard him debate anyone at all, other than the occasional renegade caller who sneaks past his screener, only to get cut-off
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Dwight,
You’re so far wrong you’re off the map.
I have listened to El Rushbo and he is a sniveling coward of the highest magnitude. He can’t debate squat. He’s a bully with a “cough button,” who can cut off any caller whenever he wants. Thomas Aquinas couldn’t win an argument with this creep on Limbaugh’s terms.
Ahh, but put this fat tub of goo into an honest format and he’d get his sizable ass kicked from one side of the stage to the other.
Dwight, the reason why El Rushbo mocks people like Newtie is that he can’t be bothered with policies and proposals. That’s way too nuanced for him. He’s a black and white guy all the way…and to judge from his cadre of callers, they are too. Rush doesn’t do subtle and neither do the Republicans with increasingly rare exceptions.
You guys have created a monster, Dwight, and now he is running amok, demanding you guys bow and scrape to him. It’s great fun to watch, but it’s hardly beneficial to your party. That’s fine with me. Lose a lot more Senate seats in 2010, then agree with the monster that you still aren’t rightwing enough, and get hosed again in 2012. You just keep cheering that monster on, brother.
And, Dwight, Ted Kennedy drove his car off the bridge more than 40 years ago and was a craven bastard in the aftermath. He certainly should have been indicted for manslaughter. That said, you might need to visit the Outrage Store for some new material. This one is so old it’s moldy.
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Gasman said on March 3, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I happened to watch all of the Porcine Oracle’s TV programs when they aired years ago on ABC. He had maybe 5 shows that actually made it to air. They were so bad, that even at his zenith, they pulled the plug on the entire enterprise. This was when he was a fairly frequent guest on mainstream media talk shows.
In one show he waded into the audience of what he assumed were his loyal dittoheads. One man lit into Limbaugh over his homophobia and insensitivity towards AIDS victims. Limbaugh turned ashen, visibly began to sweat profusely and mumbled and stammered for a few seconds before they hurriedly cut to a commercial. When they came back, the entire audience was gone. Presto, change-o! Poof! Obviously, things got so out of control during the break that they found they could not continue the show with an audience. He finished the show in an empty studio, visibly shaken and uncharacteristically timid.
Limbaugh is incapable of debate. He is a self loathing bully who knows that he is intellectually inferior to nearly anyone he is likely to meet. That interaction with a live TV audience was the last time he subjected himself to anything other than a totally controlled situation.
He is so consistently wrong about the most basic of facts – such as Saturday’s confusion between what is and isn’t contained in the Constitution and/or the Declaration of Independence – that any reasonably informed liberal would simply decimate Lord Lardass in a debate. He knows this. This is why his shows originate from within the deepest recesses of his dark lair.
Believe me, if the Jiggling Tyrant wants to debate liberals, they will line up for miles just for the chance of harpooning his massive bulk. It’s the Republicans that fear him.
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Dorothy said on March 3, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Somebody might want to keep an eye on Dwight. That embolism he’s carrying around seems about to burst.
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Gasman,
Well said. El Rushbo is far scarier to Republicans than Democrats. We expect to get crapped on by him daily, but his own people are now feeling his anger. Some are even taking preemptive action.
I saw Little Bobby Jindal has taken the brave position of describing Limbaugh as a “great leader” who should not have been mentioned negatively by Michael Steele. I guess he owed the Oxycontin Kid big time since Limbaugh was virtually alone in saying Little Bobby’s response to President Obama was great. Attaboy, Little Bobby, attaboy. Good Bobby. Roll over, Bobby. Sit up and beg, Bobby. Speak, Bobby, speak!
Oh, what brave souls these Republicans be.
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Sue said on March 3, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Alright, a debate! Can we have James Carville? I would pay to watch that.
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moe99 said on March 3, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Just saw this teaser line on Wonkette:
Rush Limbaugh Has Balls of Steele.
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John said on March 3, 2009 at 3:34 pm
James Carville wouldn’t be a fair match. He has a college education and law degree. I’m thinking of the D’s equivalent to Joe the Plumber, but can’t come up with a good name.
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mark said on March 3, 2009 at 3:40 pm
My fifteen year-old niece and her cheerleader friends reportedly spend an inordinate amount of time texting and talking about the girls they don’t like, competing for ever more vulgar and mean-spirited ways to belittle them and to demean them for the things they think they have done and the things they speculate they probably would do. Her parents are pretty alarmed at their child’s current nastiness and lack of charity.
Perhaps they should be alarmed. It seems sometimes people don’t grow out of the name-calling stage.
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Sue said on March 3, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Mark, to which of us dumb sonsabitches might you be referring?
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del said on March 3, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Your bigger problem Dwight is that young people in this country have been storming the Democratic party in numbers unseen since the days of FDR. So once the dittoheads die off the whole landscape will be radically different.
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mark said on March 3, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Sue, I don’t think it has anything to do with being dumb. And I’d be happy if my niece had your insight about how tides can turn. But that will require her to turn her attention to ideas, not personalities.
She is young and I have much hope.
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del said on March 3, 2009 at 3:59 pm
I’m sure she’ll do fine with your direction Mark.
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Sue said on March 3, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Mark, keep repeating this mantra: “Two steps forward, one step back”. That has kept me going for the last decade (mine’s 23). As long as you see them having little moments of enlightenment, or (unfortunately) big embarrassing moments of enlightenment, they have a chance, even with the setbacks that seem to last months.
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moe99 said on March 3, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Rush really is a dick.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017130.php
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Dexter said on March 3, 2009 at 4:40 pm
When Wanda Henrickson suggested she’d like Kathy Marquard to pick her some flowers for her hair, and hugged and kised her, I just had a feeling she was “in on” something…right now I am convinced Wanda was knowledgeable of Hollis Greene and Roman Grant being in the area.
I watch all the HBO specials , but I refuse to watch the therapy shows any more.
I consider them a waste of time.
Life would be a lot more empty without “Flight of the Conchords” , though. There has never been a show like that!
Entourage never grabbed me either, though.
Give me Bret and Jermaine any day!
Maybe you’ve seen Kristen Schaal on Stewart’s show…she plays Mel on “Flight…” and she’s truly a riot!
Back to “Big Love”…Bill’s a focussed megalomaniac, Don is a wimpy albatross, Barb is good at masking her total dedication to running everything her own way, Nicollette is a small-minded, selfish bitch, and Margene is perfect! Ben thinks so too…he gets wood just looking at her.
Evil always wins, though, so I cast my lot with Roman Grant. And…those Greenes from Mexico? CREEPY !!!!
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LA Mary said on March 3, 2009 at 4:52 pm
A good photo of Rush:
http://gawker.com/5163805/butt-boy-blues
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brian stouder said on March 3, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Mary’s linked photo wins the thread!
He looks like one of the Geico cavemen
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Sue said on March 3, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I believe the correct wording is “Life, Liberty, Beaches and Pie”. It’s in the founding documents somewhere, right?
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LA Mary said on March 3, 2009 at 5:38 pm
It’s Life, Liberty and unlimited prescription drugs for recreational use.
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I believe that photo dates to the days when Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was going by Rusty Limbaugh and working to be a successful disc jockey. A brief history of his short stint at WIXZ in McKeesport, Pa. notes that he was already very conservative and a portly 300 pounds, but that he was canned after 18 months because he did not get along with the program director. (El Rushbo said this was because he insisted on playing “Under My Thumb” by the Rolling Stones once per hour, violating station playlist policy.) This was in the early `70s and that shirt he’s wearing along with the cheesy moustache sure looks like that time period.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on March 3, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Herb Tarlek got a stint doing on-air call-in one afternoon, and thirty years later, we’ve got Rush.
OK, that was unfair to Herb.
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coozledad said on March 3, 2009 at 6:15 pm
LA Mary: Don’t forget the truckloads of money the Republicans have squirreled away to clean up what is likely to be a terribly embarrassing end for Rush. Smothered under a heap of oiled third-world teenage prostitutes? His afterparts frozen with a plasterlike cast of his sigmoid colon made up of the inert ingredients of the opiates he’s eating? Or merely with his head jammed in the toilet trying to cough up an underchewed lobster.
They’ll say he died peacefully in his sleep, and there’ll be no police photos of his bloated face. Then they can do a postmortem liposuction on the cadaver,put him in a hall at Branson, MO, and have the harelipped neosecessionists pay twenty dollars a pop to kneel at the catalfalque and kiss his dead old ass.
There’s not a dimes’ worth of difference between that sausage lidded child-penetrator and Hermann Goering,except that Goering must have been young at some point in his life.
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jeff borden said on March 3, 2009 at 6:19 pm
YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE FAT MAN
…from U.S. News & World Report
GOP to Michael Steele: Quiet About Rush Limbaugh or You’re Fired
March 03, 2009 04:34 PM ET | Paul Bedard | Permanent Link | Print
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Apology to Rush Limbaugh aside, new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is coming under fire from his own GOP troops to shut up and focus on his job of organizing the party and raising money, not fighting with his own political kind. Several Republican advisers to Congress and the previous Bush administration told Whispers that they are worried that the war of words is fracturing the party when it should be healing the division between conservatives and moderates in the wake of the 2008 election.
“What is amazing is that Steele was elected because of his communications skills, and it is those skills that are damaging the Republican Party. Before people begin to completely judge him as worthless, Steele needs to focus and knuckle down on building a strong foundation at RNC so we can begin rebuilding our majority,” says a top GOP strategist who has worked for House and Senate Republican leaders. “If his implosion continues, RNC members are likely to call a special session to dump him for an effective chairman. There is not much patience for failure.”
Others want Steele to re-evaluate his role in the party. Of concern: For no reason, he is dividing the GOP between conservatives who like Limbaugh and moderates who don’t and jeopardizing future fundraising efforts, his key responsibility. “The general sentiment of the conference is that Steele needs to step back and get a handle on his role in the party,” says an influential congressional aide. Namely, advisers want him to stay out of the media and focus instead on hiring his staff and revamping the RNC. “He needs to hire staff for the RNC, get the operations up and running, start raising money, and understand that his role is to win elections,” says a senior party adviser. Officials are concerned that Steele either doesn’t understand his responsibilities or has an inflated vision of his role. “At this point, it is as if he has a fundamental misunderstanding of the job description. An RNC chairman who attacks Republicans and insults conservative icons is about as counterproductive as any Democrat could hope for,” says the adviser.
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Dexter said on March 3, 2009 at 7:42 pm
A lot of discussion about one radio personality here today—here’s a suggestion: Stephanie Miller, XM 167.
9 to noon.
Obama numbers are in, three big ones discussed here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#29497654
First Lady number: 63% approval. As discussed in the above link, she was feared to be a liability just months ago.
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coozledad said on March 3, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Dexter: Listened to her today on the way into Durham. I liked the caller who’d been trying to tie the banking crisis to homosexuals shifting his focus to the international Jewish conspiracy. The Republicans are down to the tearoom racism of the Brahmins coupled with the pencil necks that gave us George Wallace.
Not a Wendell Willkie in the bunch. Not even a Barry Goldwater.
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beb said on March 3, 2009 at 9:21 pm
I would love to see Rush interviewed by some liberal. My choice: Rachel Maddow. She’s a radio talk show host, too, so she knows all the tricks Rusuh would bring to any debate or interview — bluster, bullying, creating strawmen and just making up stuff. Don’t send a 16 year old girl to debate him, she would be crushed. Rush does not debate, he attacks.
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coozledad said on March 3, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Nancy: I’m going out on a limb. Early spring, hot dry summer. Remind me when I’m wrong, I’ll send you a couple cartons of eggs.
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Dexter said on March 4, 2009 at 2:00 am
I’m a little fired up. Remember a few days ago when Pelosi seemed chagrined at Obama’s 50,000 residual troops in Iraq plan? HA! As if she will stimulate discourse on the floor about it!
Those of us who have a few years remember the “military advisors” of JFK’s term, and how that seed grew into 569,000 troops in Vietnam by 1969. Military advisors are there for one reason: they are there to take the temperature , on the spot, of the war. It gets a little hot, and all the troops poised on the border and in Afghanistan will rush right back into Iraq.
We already hear a new strongman , much worse than Saddam Hussein, may emerge.
I believe Biden’s plan of division with borders in The Region will never happen, unless the US commits a million troops to enforce the roundup and movement of the populace, hell…they would need THREE million troops to get that job done! Advisors? We have been down the advisor-route before, and it’s a dead-end.
I love Harry Reid…but I just wish he was more of a forceful dove, and I wish Pelosi was not such a phony. Anybody who followed her words just prior to the 2006 elections, and followed up on her non-actions in trying to end the Iraq war knows what I am writing about.
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Dexter said on March 4, 2009 at 2:21 am
Bob Herbert of The Times has his finger on the pulse of the two wars…I hope nobody misses this column from a couple days ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/03herbert.html?em
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alex said on March 4, 2009 at 7:15 am
Okay, after all of this lovely schadenfreude, it’s time for some contrition:
http://www.dccc.org/content/sorry
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brian stouder said on March 4, 2009 at 9:06 am
Hah! Loved the schadenfreude goodness!
On a blazingly brighter note, there’s this article – within which there must be a joke.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29499420/
MEDFORD, Ore. – An arsonist is apparently on the prowl for green Ford Escorts from the 1990s. Three of them have been burned in recent weeks, a series of acts that Medford police Sgt. Mike Budreau described as “pretty bizarre.”
The last sentence of the article (which you have to go see) made me laugh out loud
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mark said on March 4, 2009 at 3:01 pm
It seems that recent discussions here have given us a sidebar ad for “polygamy.” Very cool and certainly worth several clicks.
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