Doubting Thomases and Other Doubts

Clarence Thomas is a man who admirably lifted himself out of extreme poverty to serve in high level Justice Department positions, but his biggest distinction is being one of the most unqualified people to ever serve on the Supreme Court. In the 16 years he’s been on the bench, the only words he’s ever uttered is, “I go along with whatever Scalia just said.” Yet even though his nomination was confirmed, in his new memoir, he’s still pissed off. Especially at liberals, who he said treated him worse that the Ku Klux Klan ever did. So a man who thinks that Ted Kennedy is worse than the Grand Wizard is deliberating on issues affecting our life and liberty.

There were two Thomases to doubt the past week. Isiah Thomas, the coach and general manager of the Knicks, was found by a jury to have sexually harassed a woman executive at Madison Square Garden. And his defense was that it’s OK for a black man to call a black woman a “bitch”. If Clarence Thomas was the presiding judge he would have probably sided with Isiah Thomas, because that’s essentially what Clarence called Anita Hill. What's next from the boorish, arrogant misogynistic management of the Knicks and Madison Square Garden? Are they going to change the name of the Knicks City Dancers to the Knicks City Bitches? And name Don Imus as their new play by play announcer?

I was at a party last week where inexplicably a boxing match on HBO was on television. In the justifiable uproar over Michael Vick and dog fighting, don’t you think someone should make a peep about humans beating each other’s brains out, with celebrities happily watching ringside? Take away the gloves and the Everlast shorts and what you have is two men or women having the kind of fight someone would try to break up in real life. Maybe it’s time to break up the fight in the ring as well. I hate it when people say that boxing is a ticket out of “the streets”. So is the military, and the end result is essentially the same. You get short term financial stability, so you can injure or kill someone, and quite possibly get injured or killed yourself. And as I watched the fight out of the corner of my eye, I couldn’t help but notice that the HBO announcers wore tuxes. When two guys are pounding each other into submission, is formalwear really called for?

I’m glad Senator Larry Craig said this week that he won’t resign. Why should he? If they were going to make Senators resign for “moral turpitude”, he should have been forced to resign with other Senators like him who voted against according gays equal rights and protections under the law. That’s immoral. Tapping your feet in a men’s room stall isn’t immoral, it’s annoying. And even having sex in a stall shouldn't be a crime- it’s just rude. After all, people are waiting who have to actually use the bathroom. It would be great if we lived in a society that didn’t feel the need to have undercover police sitting in men’s room stalls all day waiting for men to tap their feet.

Republicans are afraid it ruins their family values image. Is it really pro-family to send sons off to war for no reason and keep them there indefinitely? And is it pro-family to threaten Iran, by saying we might use our military options, instead of negotiating? Military options is a polite way of saying “Killing men, women and children.” We should make Presidential candidates say those words instead of "military options". Rudolph Giuliani would have to say "We can’t take the killing of men, women and children option off the table.”

New Yorkers seem more devastated by the collapse of the Mets than by the collapse of our moral authority. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world, if people got more outraged by a President who misled us into a horribly unnecessary war, than by a decent and talented Mets manager who couldn’t get his wildly overpaid players to hit, field or pitch a ball? Instead of “Fire Willie”, I’d like to live in a country where 55,000 people in a stadium yelled “Fire Bush and Cheney” instead.

When will Bush ever learns?

With his foreign and domestic policies a total failure, George W. Bush's sole purpose now is to provide fodder for comedians.

Speaking in defense of his No Child Left Behind program this week in Washington, Bush uttered the words, "Childrens do learn". Apparently, Bush is a child who has been left behind.

Bush is not the only person in his administration acting like an undereducated child. Right before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN Tuesday, the US delegation got up and walked out, apparently not smart or mature enough to understand the definition of diplomacy. Walking out during another country's speech is so totally a high school move. Will US diplomats short sheet Ahmadinejad's bed the next time he's in town?

Ahmadinejad was allowed to speak at Columbia University, but had to follow the worst introduction a speaker could get. Columbia President Lee Bollinger said that Ahmadinejad was a cruel, petty dictator, who lacked the courage and integrity to answer questions honestly. That's tough to follow, and I should know, since I got that same intro once at The Comic Strip.
Whatever happened to ,"Please give our next speaker the courtesy and attention you would want for yourself?" I can imagine how Lee Bollinger, who teaches a course in Freedom of Speech at Columbia, treats his students. "Before you give me the answer to that question, let me just say that I'm sure your response will be wildly off-base, and I think that you have no prospects whatsoever for ever succeeding in life. OK, what's your answer?" Bollinger should be forced to take Civility 101 before he's allowed to do another introduction.

Ahmadinejad was compared with, you guessed it, Hitler in an ad by a right-wing Jewish group. Comparing him to Hitler trivializes what Hitler did. Years ago, I heard someone say that George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees, was a Nazi because he kept firing managers. Yes, that's what the Nazis were known for, those constant managerial changes.

John McCain said he would be more comfortable with a Christian President, since the Constitution says the US was founded as a Christian nation. I guess separation of Church and State is about as popular today as civility.

Jesus would be pretty appalled to have John McCain taking his name in vain, since McCain was one of the "major" Republican Presidential candidates who skipped a debate dealing with minority issues and featuring black and Hispanic journalists. Jesus cared about the poor and the powerless. John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson think the poor and the powerless are Democratic voters who should be ignored.

When viewers on Fox News were asked who won the debate, they chose the four empty podiums. The loser, once again, was the rest of us.

A world leader who has sent weapons to Iraq that have killed thousands of people wants to speak this week in New York. While some may protest, I say- let George W. Bush be heard. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad too. Of course The Daily News and The Post call Ahmadinejad "a madman". Why is it that every world leader who we disagree with goes right to the "madman" category? Isn't there a middle ground somewhere? Of course, the President of Iran has said disturbing things about Israel and the Holocaust. But calling someone a "madman"(remember Sadaam Hussein?) pretty much excuses a rush to war.

I say, put down the weapons and try a more disarming word. Instead of "madman", let's try "Schmuck". Lots of world leaders say schmucky things, but you don't invade them because of it. And frankly, it makes Jews like myself feel better calling someone a schmuck, than a madman.

And what does it say about our country that a bigot like Ann Coulter earns thousands of dollars on speaking engagements across the US, but Columbia University is pressured not to let the President of an actual country speak. And irony lessons are also in order for those institutions who have recently cancelled appearances by authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt who write in their new book "The Israel Lobby" that debate about the Middle East is stifled in the US. And what better way to show that than to not let them speak?

The only way to achieve peace in Iraq, with Iran and in the entire Middle East is to talk. Some people say, "We tried talking; it didn't work". That's like saying, "I tried breathing; I didn't care for it". Here's a wild idea. When Bush and Ahmadinejad are in New York this week, why don't they sit down and talk? I guess if I brought up that idea to the Bush Administration they'd call me a madman.

I began hosting my live talk show The End Of The Week As We Know It about 4 years ago in New York. I did an opening monologue based on the week’s events, interviewed a guest(The Nation’s Eric Alterman and former Clinton press secretary Jake Siewert among others) and then hosted a roundtable of comedians and writers weighing in on the news of the week. I plan on doing a version of that show on stage and on the Web soon, but today I launch a weekly blog of my observations of the past week. I hope to add video soon.

The Beginning of the End

What provoked criticism this week from both Democrats and Republicans and was called “despicable”? You would think President Bush’s speech Thursday that called for the unjust, illegal war presented to the American people in a deceptive, manipulative way, to continue for many years into the future, would be the words to condemn. Instead, a pun in a MoveOn.org ad is apparently the height of evil and immorality. Using the words Petraeus and Betray Us in a headline, is going too far for Democrats and Republicans, but keeping a large number of American troops in Iraq indefinitely is prudent and acceptable. Once again, Democrats are letting Republicans frame the debate. Republicans shouldn’t be allowed to frame a poster, after years of lying and deceiving us about the Iraq War. Even today, on This Week with George Stephanopolous, Secretary of Defense Gates said the reason we had to invade Iraq was because Saddam Hussein was destabilizing the Middle East. You would think someone who was Secretary of Defense would have a working knowledge of American history from 4 years ago, but just like his predecessor, Gates, as well as the whole Bush administration says the polar opposite of the truth. Our invasion, causing the deaths of more than 3000 US troops and well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, in addition to creating more than 4 million Iraqi refugees, destabilized the region. So anytime you hear a Bush official talk about Iraq, just realize that the truth is the opposite of what they say. And at this point they might as well say anything. If you’re going to make stuff up, why not go all the way? Tell us that Iraq is getting a National Hockey League franchise. Tell us that now’s the time to buy condos in Baghdad. Tell us that Iraq spelled backwards is September 11. If they brought back the game show To Tell The Truth, no member of the Bush Administration could be on it.

But on a happier note, Madonna met with Israeli President Shimon Peres. Who says there's no hope for peace in the Middle East? The only way to achieve peace is to talk to all the parties involved. Which begs the question- if Israel can talk to Madonna why not talk to Hamas too?

On Saturday, demonstrators marched on Washington to demand an end to the war. The turnout was estimated by organizers at 100,000. Fox News put the number at 12, and said they weren't protesting, they were waiting for the bus.

And President Bush is expected to name his nominee for Attorney General tomorrow. Alberto Gonzalez was asked today why he resigned, and he said he didn't recall resigning. The Bush Administration says it will be searching for a new Attorney General with the necessary qualities -incompetence, deception, willful ignorance and arrogance. So their choice will be someone already in the Bush administration.

Blog Launches September 16

The End Of The Week As We Know It, a fresh, funny look at the events of the past week, by political comedian Scott Blakeman, premieres on Sunday September 16. See you then.