Reality-based

Admiring of Bill Maher's HBO program Real Time as I am, I cannot help but get mightily annoyed when he becomes hyper-solicitous of his Republican or Repo-sympathizing guests, or when he pets them reassuringly after they've elicited howls of protest, either from their co-panelists or the audience, to their Bush-apologist bullshit.

Having produced my own talk show on Public Access television back in the 90s, I fully understand the difficulty of bringing in types who would not be well received by the raucous folk who people his audience and would consequently be reluctant to participate. But Maher often goes overboard walking in their shoes or shooshing his audience when they rightly applaud progressive points well made. Moreover, he steadfastly continues to intellectualize "the big picture" of the Iraq debacle, often agreeing with the neocons when they assert their plan of stabilizing the Middle East as working, even though it'll take decades.

I too have wondered about and could easily convince myself the big picture will have a happy ending, even as I'll never buy today's mess as something the bastards anticipated. And then I look at the news of the day and at the people running the show, and my skepticism -- nay, cynicism -- is reinforced (see below).

As for Maher, all is forgiven when he "kids the President," which, along with his New Rules, makes Real Time worth the time.

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Was winnowing my email this fine Sunday morning and came across a note, forwarded by Brotherman the Elder back on February 1st. I share it now as I am slowly learning the tricky HTML eccentricities of blogger.com, and, of course, the content here is still quite timely, and likely will be for as long as History is properly recorded:

Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today, justifying illegal, unauthorized surveillance of US citizens, but during the course of his speech the students in class did something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats and turned their backs to him.

To make matters worse for Gonzales, additional students came into the room, wearing black cowls and carrying a simple banner, written on a sheet.

And, as one of the people on the panel said:

"When you're a law student, they tell you that if you can't argue the law, argue the facts. They also tell you if you can't argue the facts, argue the law. If you can't argue either, apparently, the solution is to go on a public relations offensive and make it a political issue; to say over and over again 'it's lawful', and to think that the American people will somehow come to believe this if we say it often enough.

"In light of this, I'm proud of the very civil civil disobedience that was shown here today." - David Cole, Georgetown University Law Professor

It was a good day for dissent.