Neocon Global Conspiracy Update
Greetings, gentlemen (and Comrade Rice). Thank you for coming. Our first order of business is a report from Comrade Scrapbook reviewing recent dramatic breakthroughs in the Asian theater of operations. Our plans for cultural conquest are proceeding apace, as you no doubt saw in last week's headlines.
As you know, for the past two years, while Comrade Rumsfeld's various diversionary initiatives in the Middle East have preoccupied the enemy, our neoconservative global conspiracy has been devoting the bulk of its energies to mainland China. Our ultimate goal, of course, is full incorporation of China as the 51st state, representing two additional seats in the Senate and, according to Comrade DeLay's estimate, approximately 1,985 additional congressional districts. The advantages of such an arrangement from the Straussian point of view are obvious. No longer will we be required to maintain elite authority over the demos by means of clandestine ballot-machinery interference. In the future, as Comrade Rove explained at our last meeting, even a Republican candidate who loses the popular vote in all 50 current states might nevertheless--and altogether legally--be elected president by an Electoral College landslide.
Of course, before we can safely effect this plan we must be absolutely certain it is Red America that China will be joining. A billion new Howard Dean voters we do not need. So our operatives have been working to establish institutional mechanisms by which the habits and attitudes of the Republican base can be transferred to China on a mass scale. The introduction of evangelical Protestantism has already proved wildly popular with China's vast, poorly educated, lower middle class, for example.
And we expect similar success from our latest campaign, launched just last week.
Some time ago, neoconservative analysts identified the state-owned Beijing Gehua Cultural Development Group as a target for infiltration. Posted on that agency's English-language website is an elegantly cryptic statement of political philosophy: "Civilization improvement is the permanent theme of human beings, meanwhile cultural perspectives is the symbol of social health development." (Comrade Wolfowitz believes this is a reference to Hegel.) In any case, elsewhere in the same document, the Beijing Gehua Group clearly appeals for Western partnerships. "Whether Gehua will become an aircraft carrier in Beijing culture media industry" remains up in the air, they admit, so "we also need the support from relevant national or international organizations, sections, and experts."
You know the rest. At a press conference in Manhattan on March 7, Beijing Gehua and U.S.-based radio and advertising giant Clear Channel Communications announced completion of a 50-year joint venture agreement under which they will mount large-scale sports and entertainment events throughout the People's Republic. And "although no specific programs have been named yet," the Hollywood Reporter subsequently disclosed, "Gehua Group has had discussions that highlight an interest in theater and motor sports, specifically monster truck events."
Or, as Reuters put it: "House sized trucks that shoot fire" while "crushing everything in their path" may "soon have the Chinese gaping in awe."
Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.
Incidentally, anybody know where we can get our hands on a couple billion Confederate flag decals?
Air(brush) America
But seriously, folks. Clear Channel Communications really did announce a big deal to bring monster truck rallies to China last week, and it really will be doing so in partnership with an agency of Beijing's Communist party-dominated--i.e., fearsomely arbitrary, dangerous, and just plain weird--municipal government. And The Scrapbook is worried that Clear Channel's executives may not be fully prepared for the experience. Perhaps they should begin boning up on Marxist-Leninist business administration techniques?
And what better way to do it than by having a listen to Clear Channel's own lowest-rated AM radio stations, whose broadcast schedules the company has lately turned over--what the hell, right?--to Air America, the perpetually troubled liberal talk-show network. The Scrapbook's good friend Al Franken (who should be ashamed of himself it's been so long since he called) is apparently still cohosting one of Air America's feature shows. But a woman named Lizz Winstead apparently isn't, having abruptly disappeared from the lineup of Air America's daily mid-morning Unfiltered program early last week.
On Monday, March 7, without explanation, Winstead--one of Air America's founding on-air personalities--was absent from the show, and every mention of her had been erased from the network's website. The Tuesday March 8 show was a rerun. Then, on Wednesday, March 9, one of the remaining cohosts, Rachel Maddow, led off the program with this:
We know that a lot of you have noticed that Lizz Winstead is not here in studio with me; I certainly have noticed this fact. I know that conspiracy theories are out there and everybody has their tinfoil hats very finely tuned on this matter. But the bottom line is that, uh, we miss Lizz, we wish her all the best, and Unfiltered will be going on without Lizz--uh, with me, and with [rapper] Chuck D, and of course with you. So, uh, that's the bottom line, and thank you to everybody who has, uh, gotten in touch with us on this matter. And that is, uh, where it stands right now and we appreciate everything that we've heard from everybody and you can certainly join the discussion online should you choose to at, uh, airamericaradio.com, just click on Unfiltered. I'm Rachel Maddow, this is Unfiltered here on Air America Radio, and, uh, that is very sad news for me to deliver. I take no pleasure in delivering that. Umm, and uh, just so you know that I'm giving you the straight dope--that is the straight dope.
Air America later released a terse statement clarifying--sort of--that "we plan to take the show in a different direction." Maybe they should try to get broadcast rights for these Chinese monster truck rallies we've been hearing about?
Obligatory New York Times Hypocrisy Item
A January 1, 1995, Times editorial on proposals to restrict the use of Senate filibusters:
In the last session of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him. . . . Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which senators held passionate views, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, . . . an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose.
A March 6, 2005, Times editorial on the same subject:
The Republicans are claiming that 51 votes should be enough to win confirmation of the White House's judicial nominees. This flies in the face of Senate history. . . . To block the nominees, the Democrats' weapon of choice has been the filibuster, a time-honored Senate procedure that prevents a bare majority of senators from running roughshod. . . . The Bush administration likes to call itself "conservative," but there is nothing conservative about endangering one of the great institutions of American democracy, the United States Senate, for the sake of an ideological crusade.