Go Duck Yourself

As I've said before, I watched Dork Dynasty once, just to see what the fuss was all about, and literally felt stupider by the end of the episode. I have no idea if the show is still airing -- and if it is, what sort of galoot is still watching it, and why. Whatever the case, Phil and Willie Robertson have parlayed their pop-culture notoriety into their avocation of injecting their regressive views into the political and religious arenas.

During the RNC last week, Willie Robertson found himself in the human centipede of D-listers, explaining as only a cosplay hillbilly millionaire could about how the "elites" don't know how to talk to "real people". That latter is one of the most tedious conceits imaginable -- that simply being working-class makes one more "real" or "legitimate". In many cases it does, but not always, and there is no shortage of supposedly regular people who are completely preposterous examples of humanity.

Willie Robertson and his family have made enormous sums of money exploiting the class anxieties of dopes and peons whose only respite is to convince themselves that smart people really aren't any smarter than anyone else, that study and expertise and analysis mean nothing, that Jebus is watching, even if he hasn't made them happy and wealthy and successful yet.

Person of Influence

Pro tip for all you folks who might be thinking of making a living telling other people how to live their lives, just because your mommy is famous for being a burbling quitter:  Remember, you can walk away at any time, if you find the kitchen getting too hot for comfort. Just a thought, but maybe you can spend the free time overcoming whatever it is in your life that finds you with three broken engagements and two out-of-wedlock children (by two different men) by the time you're 25 years old.

(Not to mention that the assumption that former fiancé Dakota Meyer is the father of this child may not necessarily be true, which would be really scandalous 'mongst the fambly valyews types. This is what happens when you don't take your whore pills.)

It's bad enough that Bristol Palin makes decent money doing nothing more than being a sanctimonious, hypocritical dunce, but what's unforgivably obnoxious is the "respect our privacy" nonsense. There's no one stopping you from going away, sweet cheeks. Trust me, no one will miss you. Go get a real job, toil away in obscurity with whatever other skill you might possess. No one's stopping you, and no one will check up on your comings and goings at the burger stand. You chose to put yourself in the public eye, no gun was put to anyone's head.

Ah, but that's always the problem in our "reality" teevee addled excuse for a society -- whenever one of these morons steps on their dicks, their first impulse is to exercise their right to privacy, but they still want to keep their public platform, their show, their blog, whatever revenue source they have to monetize their meager talent. They think they should be able to have it both ways, to use said platform to influence behavior and promote their social causes, and then when they're caught being hypocrites (which, you know, tends to undermine whatever value is created by their promotions), they want a pass and privacy. No. It doesn't work that way, unless you want to do the right thing and just go away already.

But that won't happen. The only that terrifies them more than having the easy money spigot turned off is finding out that they could completely disappear and nobody would notice.

Wife of the Party

The Palins plan their dine-and-dash from The Golden Snoot.

The Wasilla Hillbillies just cain't help theirselfs, kin they? Showing up at someone else's birthday shindig in a stretch Hummer limo (because a dented Airstream would have been just too fucking spot-on), the ClampettsPalins promptly set about making it all about them, as usual:

....multiple accounts say that it started when Track confronted Willow’s former boyfriend, Conner Cleary, who was there with his father Steve and his mother Melissa. Thompson didn’t see this part, but other witnesses, who didn’t want to be named, say that Conner and Track fought on the front yard. Steve tried to break it up. Todd jumped into the mix and began to choke Steve. 

After that ended, Conner, Steve, and Melissa Cleary huddled together close to Thompson, who spotted Bristol and Willow from a distance, walking straight towards them with purpose.

“They were on a b-line, coming straight at Melissa,” Thompson said.

The owner of the house, Klingenmeyer, was trying to head them off at the pass. He approached them and told them to leave. Bristol, according to Thompson and other witnesses, planted her feet, “stood straight up, brought her arm back and cold-cocked him right in the face,” Thompson said.

And then she did it again, about six more times, before he pushed her away, and she fell, and Todd appeared.

....

Another melee. This time Sarah got involved and began to scream profanities at everyone. One source, who didn’t want to be named, said that she was “nearly crawling on top of people,” trying to get into the scrum.

As these things go, that also broke up, and the Palins were asked again to leave. They piled into the Hummer, but not until Track stood out in front of the house, inexplicably with his shirt off, his middle finger raised at those who were also leaving.

On the one hand, it's so cool that the most important woman in the universe has time to crash other people's parties and siphon cash from rube subscribers; on the other, her slugging percentage with successful parenting is sad enough that a normal person with that, um, track record would shy away from offering family and parenting advice.

A few more "doncha know who I am?" tirades from Miss Thang and her insufferably over-entitled drunken brood, and they may find themselves sent out on an ice floe by fed-up Alaskans. As always, one can hope.

Oh and, uh, fuck you, John McCain. This is all your fault.

The Mouth That Bored; Or, A Farce to Be Reckoned With

Life is uncertain, but July has come to mean two immutable facts of life -- one is the sweltering itch of swamp crack, and the other is Sarah Palin honking something stupid into a towel, knowing that her idiot fan club will worship it like it's the Shroud of Turin. Not content to rest on her mama-of-the-year credentials, Palin continues her tireless quest to become the go-to rainmaker and prognosticating mynah bird of the dim set.

It doesn't matter that, as inept as Obama has been on multiple fronts, no laws have been broken, and you'd think even a maroon like Palin would know that you need to be able to cite chapter and verse what part of the legal code has been transgressed. Chewed-on complaints and stale "battered wife" jabber won't cut it.

Then again, who knows? It's midterm season, which for the Goopers means keeping turnout low but passionate. They'll hold the House, and if they can take the Senate, they can easily ramp up the mischief factor, and may even find a way to stretch some penny-ante bullshit into impeachment. Unlikely, but all of this would have been deemed unlikely 5 or 6 years ago, when these hooting jerkoffs had gleefully plowed the country into a garbage scow.

Palin has even asserted that she could and should host her own talk show, or be on The View panel. And why not? People make fun of, say, Fox and Friends, and rightly so, but The View has had more than its share of mouth-breathing fools (including current F and F cupcake Elisabeth Hasselbeck, uncomfortably sandwiched between leering doofuses Steve Doocy and Not Steve Doocy) spouting some of the dopiest things imaginable.

It might be worth giving Palin a small platform in the dingbat ghetto, braying her nonsense at bored hausfraus who are just waiting for Dr. Oz to sift through their poop, just to get her out of the nation's ass already. On the one hand, she fits perfectly Dorothy Parker's classic observation that if you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the sorts of people he gives it to; on the other, no matter how much filthy pelf she rakes in with her dumb jokes and dumber assertions, her kids will blow it all on magic beans and monster trucks.