Political Odds & Sods on Thursday morning, Nov. 16
- Sid Blumenthal quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald in discussing "Sonny's" mess in Iraq -- and how James Baker has been sent over to clean things up AGAIN:
They were careless people ... They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
- Meanwhile, deep under the murky waters off the coast of the state of Denial, Larry King asks Roseanne if the Internet "as a political medium [is] viable?"
BARR: Yes, it’s like the only one left, absolutely, and that’s not just me saying it. That’s everybody saying it.
KING: But there’s 80 billion things on it.
BARR: Yes, but if you know where to look, you know, it all can come together....
KING: I’ve never done it, never gone searching.
BARR: Oh, my God! It just opens up the whole universe. It’s so awesome. You would love it.
KING: No, I wouldn’t.
BARR: Anything you want to know.
KING: The wife loves it. I wouldn’t love it. What do you punch little buttons and things?
- CNN's Glenn Beck challenges the first-ever Muslim congressman with this: "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." Wanker. Actually, in all fairness, we should point out that apparently Congressman Keith Ellison's Minnesota district does have a lot of Somali immigrants in it. So perhaps Beck can be excused for wetting his pants -- maybe he's having some sort of Blackhawk Down flashback or something.
"What do you punch little buttons and things?"
Ha! I’ll never forget the time the CEO of this $400 million NGO I was doing work for commanded that all headquarters-wide e-mails be pre-cleared at the executive-level. Why? Because one night his mail account was maxed-out and he couldn’t figure out how to delete mail to clear it.
I could recount many such stories about the technological cluelessness of the high and mighty (no doubt you could as well) and how that seriously undermined organizational missions.
It will be a significant day for progress of all sorts when these dinosaurs retire to the old technophobes home.