Week in Rear View: Cell Block America

Week in Rear View: Cell Block America

Jail has been, well, “hot” this week. And if you can’t recognize how hot it's been, then you may, in fact, be leading a simple life.

Where does one begin? Fake or real? Real or fake? No, silly, I’m not talking about Pam Anderson or those chee-chee mamas in The Girls Next Door. I’m talking about the current state of our mainstream media, which loves to keep the “real” on the DL to transport us to a different world overpopulated by Paris, Lindsay, and others in a Nation Gone Wild.

The fake news is that Paris Hilton went to jail, only to be released temporarily for some reported, get this, “medical reasons”—my ass, and then put back into jail for the remainder of her sentence. The real news is that I. Scooter Libby, part of the Neocon death squad, a cheerleader for the war/mess in Iraq, received a 2 ½ year jail sentence this week for basically outing a top cover CIA agent—her name would be Valerie Plame—and for obstructing justice—Scooter’s game would be covering for Dick, our Vice President.

Paris knocked the shit of Scooter in our steroid-induced news cycle; quite frankly, Paris does look better than a WASPy, old prune. Regardless of Paris’s good looks or her intriguing SHEnanigans, there are now over 3,500 dead in Iraq and even more political casualties at home; General Peter Pace is the latest to join the body pile-up of the Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, prison-obsessed foreign policy of Bush/Cheney. Which brings me to my larger point: in our Dick Wolf, Law & Order, CSI, COPS, Prison Break culture, why is it that most Americans are trapped in a cell block of mis/dis—information?

A DOLT'S HOUSE

A DOLT’S HOUSE

Our son doesn’t like us to use the word “stupid.” He tells us—because we’ve repeatedly told him—that he “doesn’t like that word.” So since we’ve been banned from using the word “stupid” in our house, I’m dedicating this entry to the stupidity in America, and, folks, there’s plenty of it.

Just take a look at our national politicians this week. Both sides of the aisle have boldly displayed stupidity like no dolt before. Ladies first: Hillary Clinton. Hillary “don’t ask, don’t tell” Clinton had the audacity at first to sidestep on whether or not homosexuality was “immoral.” But after quickly realizing how stupid a move she had made and after being apparently scolded for her stupidity by a triangulating consultant or two, Hillary issued a statement clarifying her initial stupidity that homosexuality was not immoral.

Gentlemen second: Barack did some maneuvering as well, but he was NOT nearly as stupid as Hillary. Instead of sidestepping, Barack electric-slided on the homosexuality/immorality question and had to issue his own statement clarifying his stupidity. Yes, Barack doesn’t think that homosexuality is immoral.

The gentleman who was actually stupider than Hillary & Barack put together was none other than John McCain. Still embraced in the tango of death with the “agent of intolerance,” religious right, straight-talker John McCain in his “Bill Frist” moment actually claimed that he was unsure whether or not a condom could prevent the spread of HIV. Kind of reminds us of when ol’ Princeton, Harvard educated Frist said he was unsure of whether or not spit could transmit HIV. Stupid, really, really stupid.

But the American politician who gets “the most stupid” award this week is none other than George W. Bush, a dolt whose White House is literally coming apart. With the Iraq invasion coming upon a four-year anniversary with more tragedy each day, a Veterans Affairs department that resembles apocalypse now playing at most VA hospitals, including at Walter Reed, a justice department doing some very unjust things, Valerie Plame Wilson testifying under oath that she was “covert,” troll right-wing hack Victoria Toensing testifying while on some bad acid that Wilson was not, Chimpy continues to move from one act of stupidity to the next.

At least the natives in Central America were smart enough to cleanse their land of Chimpy, whom they considered inherently evil, once he had left. Too bad we Americans are simply too stupid to do the same.