Last night I caught a few minutes of Dennis Miller’s show on CNBC. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared. The format struck me as a more conservative and less jokey “Daily Show.” His worldview doesn’t mesh terribly well with mine, but he’s worlds better than Bill O’Riley.
However, while interviewing a Kerry biographer (I believe) Miller got off on a tangent about how liberals in general and Kerry in particular simply aren’t aware of just how dangerous the world is. Clearly he’s taking a cue from Bush, who in his prosaic charm loves to refer to the “dangerous world” we are living in. The man has never met an oversimplification he didn’t find perfectly suitable for communicating to the American people.
The implication is that because “they” don’t know how dangerous the world is only “we” can protect you from it. Meanwhile, I don’t think there is a man, woman, or child who isn’t acutely aware of just how severe things are in the world presently. Not only is the statement a worthless platitude, it’s an example of using fear as a tool for influencing the populace.
Indeed it is a dangerous world. You can be shot, run over, develop cancer while uninsured, eat yourself to an early grave; all manner of deaths are on the menu. If you happen to be one of the billions of people living in the Third World, your peril is more immediate still.
The probability of you dying from terrorism, however, is so infinitessimally minute that one wonders why such a fuss is being made of it.
Strikes me as more chickenhawk shit. Think about it: Kerry served with distinction in Vietnam, he just MIGHT have some idea that there are people out there who want to kill Americans. Whereas I bet Miller didn’t do any military service at all. Just like a chickenhawk to call a combat veteran naive about the dangerousness of the world. Miller’s an asshole, to hell with him.
Regardless of how you weigh in on the OP, that statement is clearly a non sequitur. Combat experience in general has little to do with whether a person realizes there are people out there who want to kill Americans, and the Viethnam War in particular had nothing to with people wanting to kill Americans (other than the soldiers who we sent over there to kill them).
Militar experience certainly can be a plus in terms in knowing when and how to use our military, but not about knowing how dangerous the world is. Especially when we are talking about military experience 30 yrs ago. I would expect Kerry’s time in the Senate for the last 20 years to be much more relevant to the issue than his military background is.
Let’s see, Dennis Miller, TV talking head and former stand-up comedian who made it to the big time with no more than a thesaurus and a dream, is making sweeping generalizations about being grounded in reality? I know I’m all ears…
Seems to me, as a perception without even the hope of proof, that its the result of conservative envy. John Stewarts Daily Show is a stitch, a hoot and a holler. They have, of course, the blessing of easy targets and a target rich environment.
Mr. Miller wants to dance the samba with one foot nailed to the floor, he starts out by insisting he won’t say anything bad about his buddy, GeeDubya. As much as personal loyalty is admirable, this is little more than an advertisement of intent, to be a Rightarded Pravda.
And who’s incredibly dumb idea was it to tape the show without a studio audience? Participation is a major part of humor, especially political humor. Surely there could be no real difficulty in filling a few rows of seats with politically reliable people?
And the jokes are lofted as lightly as a bowling ball, and land with an appropriate “thud”. Its hard to imagine that these are Miller’s Own, they utterly lack the sting one associates with Miller.
Now, it appears, they are going to go for a “makeover”, after a brief hiatus, they will add some of the features that should have been present to begin with. But what mechanism can they attach to create humor? How many jokes about Kerry’s basset hound demeanor can you make?
Well, haven’t seen the show but I always liked Dennis Miller. I can’t say I ever thought of him as in Bush’s camp either…he’s had some rather scathing things to say about the president in the past. I’ll have to tune in to watch. One thing in the posts so far struck me as odd:
Does this mean we are to take as gospel anyone who served in war as knowing what they are talking about from a national security perspective…or is this just a specific allowance you give to Kerry? I mean, did you vote for Bush I over Clinton the first time because Bush had ‘served with distinction’ and Clinton had not (to say the least)? There are plenty of folks that served in Vietnam or in other wars…hell, I ‘served’ in the first gulf war. You going to take MY word on things that relate to people out there wanting to kill Americans??? Why does Kerry serving with distinction in Vietnam automatically grant him…well anything frankly? And if it does, should we extend this to other folks that served with distinction…like Bush’s dad? Its ridiculous IMO.
I guess having been in the military I never have understood this arguement. I mean, from my own time in, I can see that folks in the military are as apt to be full of shit as those out. Soldiers aren’t drawn from some other class of people or some elite…they are just citizens like everyone else who happen to serve their country for a time. Sure, it grants some additonal perspectives, but it doesn’t make one god like in knowing what threats are out there…and what threats aren’t. Nor does it necessarily make you better qualified at assessing those threats than someone who never even set foot on a military base.
All that having been said, Dennis Miller is a comedian not a politician or a scholar. I personally find the man funny and sometimes insightful, but I wouldn’t trust his word on anything…he’s going for laughs not to be intellectually rigorous.
What is worse is that the Republican way of dealing with a dangerous world is only making it more dangerous overall… plus what Dr.J said above… they have little idea of how complicated the world is.
I’ve watched the show a couple times and stuck a fork in my eyes because they rolled too high up. From what I heard on one of his shows, there’s going to be a studio audience coming soon. That should help him a bit as he seems to wait for the crew to give a verbally approving laugh to all of his jokes.
He also said at the beginning of the series that he’s pretty muched switched to right-wing politics because they know how to handle the world after 9/11. (That’s just a summation, not his words.) He folllowed up by saying that he didn’t care if gays married as he’s socially liberal and then made belabored gay jokes. And then I yawned.
Let’s not mince words. The show is just plain awful. It gets a little better when he has his panel on…
If CNBC had listened to my advice in the first place, it mightn’t have turned out so bad-- they need to get Dennis Miller **and Bill Maher ** on as a sort of enlightened and lively Hannity and Colms.
Click the link. Read it. So, how’s Bush doing in the real war on terror - that of protecting the world from the threat of unrestrained nuclear proliferation?
Luxembourg is next to go
and who knows, maybe Monaco
We’ll try to stay serene and calm
when Alabama has the bomb.
Who’s next, who’s next, who’s next,
who’s next?
If some comedian got his own talk show, on which he said he intended to discuss political topics… but did not intend to seriously discuss anything critical of or embarrassing towards a given liberal politician…
…then I would regard the show as basically shilling for a given point of view. Period. A free commercial for the Democrats or the Greens or whoever “liberal” refers to this week.
I see no reason to regard Dennis Miller any differently simply because he’s shilling for the other team.
