Shrub Del Dotto


Years ago I worked the night shift and often found it difficult--even with the help of, ahem, various medicinals--to fall asleep at anything approaching a reasonable hour...and, with the internet really on the cusp of evolution to an in-house service (another, um, "ahem" here: I actually remember spending an obscene amount of money for one of the first 14.4 kbps modems on the market...who-hoo...so I could race through the various "gopher" sites then available...and, yes, I'm hanging my head in shame and embarrassment)...ok, back to the point...Anyway, I ended up half-paying attention to any number of late-night infomercials on non-cable TV during this somewhat dismal stretch of existence...they kept me company at 3 in the morning, and, again with the help of "medicinals," could prove mildly entertaining, at least to a cynic.

One that really caught my ear one night was Dave Del Dotto's real estate "secrets." Aside from his amusingly alliterative moniker, I was struck by the degree of smarminess as he gleefully talked up the joys of pouncing on and flipping foreclosed property. I think he later had some legal troubles before resurfacing as a vinyard owner up around Napa.

Del Dotto's oily Californian accent was something between used-car salesman and strip-club proprietor. And while our present Smirk-Chimp-in-Chief sounds more like a mix of used-car salesman and strip-club PATRON, his remarks at today's "press availability" instantly had me googling Dave, hoping I could provide some evidence for my intuitive comparison.

Well, all I could find re: Del Dotto, were a bunch of references to wine. But I think this might catch some of his, um, flavor, at least as channeled by Smirk:

Today the Prime Minister and I talked about the ways we're working to advance freedom and human dignity across the world...The Prime Minister and I have committed our governments to a plan to make every effort to achieve a lasting peace out of this crisis...We recognize that many Lebanese people have lost their homes, so we'll help rebuild the civilian infrastructure that will allow them to return home safely...

This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East. Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for a broader change in the region...

And so one of the things that the people in the Middle East must understand is that we're working to create the conditions of hope and opportunity for all of them. And we'll continue to do that... That's--this is the challenge of the 21st century.

There's more here.

[pause]

[resume]

You know, on second thought, I might have to apologize...to Del Dotto, who might be considered a fucking genius compared to pReznut Smirk-Chimp the Codpieced. Good god. "Hezbollah is not a state." ?!? Or "And one of the challenges, of course, is to convince people that Muslims would like to be free, that there's other people other than people in Britain and America that would like to be free in the world. There's this kind of almost -- kind of weird kind of elitism, that says, well, maybe certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free; maybe it's best just to let them sit in these tyrannical societies. And our foreign policy rejects that concept. We don't accept it." ---this was in response to David Gregory's asking Shrub about the loss of American influence in the region. He continued:

Well, David, we went to the G8 and worked with our allies and got a remarkable statement on what took place. We're working to get a United Nations resolution on Iran. We're working to have a Palestinian state. But the reason why -- you asked the question -- is because terrorists are trying to stop that progress. And we'll ultimately prevail, because they have -- their ideology is so dark and so dismal that when people really think about it, it will be rejected. They just got a different tool to use than we do: They kill innocent lives to achieve objectives. That's what they do. And they're good. They get on the TV screens and they get people to ask questions about, well, this, that or the other. I mean, they're able to kind of say to people, don't come and bother us because we will kill you...

Good grief: the "leader of the free world," in all probability, would be unable to pass a Political Science 101 midterm. And the best he can offer in the face of several ugly crises, mostly of his own making is "the world sees suffering, but I see opportunity." ?!?

People are literally DYING, in extraordinarily ugly ways, on an hour-by-hour basis, thanks to this serial sociopath/loser's dimwitted and lackluster "policy." But, like the used-war salesman he is, Shrub denies the harsh glare of reality while pretending to see some sort of shiny thing on the ground that'll somehow turn a trainload of shit into a tidy box of shinola.

Well, it's awfully goddamned easy for HIM, given his unearned, coddled station in life. The rest of us will have to live with the consequences...as some certainly are, particularly along the Gulf Coast, where, while visions of democratic Middle Eastern sugar plums danced through Shrub's head, disasters, the results of nature and negligence, were ignored. That son of a bitch. Literally.

He ought to be dragged to ALL the places where he's brought his leaden touch--and then forced to live in the rubble of his making while he sorts out just exactly what his "vision" is...