The Bubble Genius Bob & Chez Show 5/24/12

Chez, Inara has good taste in TV: SpongeBob makes (most) adults crazy, but it’s good fun if you’re in the right mood. Gorgeous and good taste—lucky kid.

Cory Booker has a reputation to maintain as The Reasonable Democrat. He had to pull out the “both sides” card because if he’d gone after Mitt Romney, Booker would have been Just Another Democrat, which is bad for his brand. Unfortunately for him, he chose the exact wrong moment to play the “both sides” card and—as they used to say on NYPD Blue—stepped on his johnson. As I’ve commented before, what he did was forgivable, but he’ll have to earn his forgiveness.

Facts, figures, math and numbers matter not at all to true believers, who need to be beaten severely about the head and shoulders. Those who are convincible need to be brought along relatively gently: no shouting, no arm-waving, no name-calling.

Chez-Wa Balls. I laughed, I cringed (and here I thought I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha Soap on a Rope was horrific).

USA Today has always been a waste of trees. I haven’t paid attention lately to its politics, if any—life’s too short—but from Day 1 it’s been an amazingly superficial news source. That it treated the deficits in FYs 2010 and 2011 as independent of anything that’s gone before is unsurprising. And $5 trillion is only less than $5.6 trillion in that fancy-pants “arithmetic” liberals use; RealMurcans® know that’s not true. *sigh*

Of course Karl Rove’s ad is cynical, silly and stupid. That’s what he does. And low-information voters eat silly and stupid up with a spoon. Anyone who buys what Karl Rove is selling needs a dope-slap. (Matt Osborne is right, by the way: the ad’s aimed at people who want confirmation for their beliefs, not at people who can be convinced.)

“Creepily inauthentic” is an excellent description of Mitt Romney. He doesn’t believe anything he says, regardless of what it is he says. He doesn’t have any core principles other than “I got mine, Jack.” And his inauthenticity and lack of convictions, ironically, makes him a better liar, which in turn makes him a stronger candidate (given the Electoral College map, it doesn’t look like it’ll help, but it is distressing).

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” –Christopher Hitchens

No matter what Jay Carney might say, there would be antagonism toward the White House by our glorious news media. And if the White House had been better at messaging (another word I loathe), the White House press corps would be accusing the administration of attempting to manipulate the news. That’s what happens when a D is president.

Good lord, Bob, never, ever, under any circumstances ask your significant other what she wants for her birthday! She’ll never say and if you ask she’ll just get annoyed. You have to learn to pay attention to the hints, mate. If she really wants something, she’ll let you know (very indirectly, perhaps, but she’ll let you know).

And Chez says “shit” at 45:54.

–alopecia