Propeller Week In Review: July 11, 2008 — Jul 11th 2008

By James Marcus

CALL WAITING

After a patriotic intermission last week, we return with the latest, greatest, most popular stories of the last seven days. For starters, a telephonic post got a particularly rousing response from the community. "Senate Backs Wiretap Bill to Shield Phone Companies" rang up 131 votes and 156 comments. AtheismIsReality rapped the administration's knuckles for the entire package: "Of course, the telecoms were shielded from liability for past behavior--Ex Post Facto--utterly unconstitutional. The ACLU should push a civil suit to SCOTUS, get the law declared unconstitutional, and burn the telecoms to the ground." After quoting chapter and verse from the actual bill, capecoralIM had some kinder words for it: "This is a foreign intelligence collection program... Not domestic. It requires a court order as well from the FISA court." But walden3 was having none of it: "Don't be ridiculous. If Hillary or Obama were president and ordered every single phone call, email, and Internet search to be logged and analyzed, you would be going out of your gourd." Another member, buckncindykill, gave the Democratic nominee a hard time for his vote: "Who cares about the Constitution anyway? It is only a goddamn piece of paper, right? Yep, Obama agrees. He signed it too." But antibrainwasher saw the vote as pure realpolitik, with no particular shame attached to it: "Treason to vote one way or another? BS. Complete BS. There is a political reality, a veto-proof senate bloc.... And there is no reason to let trial lawyers profit from suing telecoms for what the Cheney regime asked them to do."

WIN, LOSE, DRAW?

On a similarly contentious note, "Cheer Up: We're Winning this War on Terror" notched the most comments of any story this week: 469. For donald51, the story was an exercise in denial: "McCain wanting to stay there for 100 years just guarantees three generations of Arabs will grow up to hate American occupation. Another record poppy crop out of Afghanistan! OBL still free! Gitmo a symbol to the world of American decadence!" FSU92grad disagreed: "No, Donald, they already hate us... have for some time. And they always will want to kill you and your family and mine too. You see, Donald, they hate the West and everything it stands for." Not surprisingly, the comment thread turned into a referendum on the war in Iraq. BB64, whose wife had flown into Baghdad to work for CENTCOM the very morning the story was posted, urged doubters to consult with the soldiers on the ground: "Perhaps you should actually get to know some of the troops over there. We're taking the fight to the terrorists. We are winning and that's very bad for liberals like you and Obama who really want to see America lose." Replied dunkirk: "Maybe you should get to know them instead of reading GOP talking points. If you did, you'd know they regard Iraq as a big mistake, ill-prepared and a boondoggle." A related story, "The 550 Tons of Yellowcake," earned 110 votes and 469 comments. Again, the thread divided along sharply partisan lines. Said libsRfunny: "Funny how [Saddam] had all that yellowcake yet somehow didn't have an illegal nuclear weapons program in the works." Scrimshaw attempted to deliver a (postmortem) message directly from the horse's mouth: "Saddam here, from the grave. That was sent by mistake, I actually ordered the cake AND candles for the annual 'Baghdad Bash.' Now where did those two idiot sons of mine put those damn candles?"

JOHNNY, BE GOOD

"How McCain Is Skirting His Own Spending Caps" generated 164 votes and 264 comments, including this somewhat cryptic comment from Secret Asian Man: "Confucius say hicks and politics don't mix." Back on topic, scott4261 scolded the Republican nominee for leaping through some fiscal loopholes: "The maverick' (a misnomer if ever there was one) is showing just how much faith he has in campaign finance reform... which is to say, none at all!" In response, tiredofwhiners accused Obama of exactly the same sin: "So good to know Obama has faith in campaign finance reform--well, not this time. Maybe in 2016." Meanwhile, fsev41 took a broader view of the mess: "Unfortunately, neither of the candidates have ultimate control of campaign spending, fund-raising, or tactics... What may be well-meaning, honest candidates enter the fray and suddenly become puppets of the party." JohnQPublic wasn't sure if this argument passed muster: "While I do agree that neither [candidate] has, as you put it, 'ultimate' control, they both do have the ability to exert a great deal of influence over how the money is spent." And as the argument got increasingly polarized and the negs started flying, willottica clocked in with a refreshing reply to an earlier commenter: "I'd neg myself if I could. Sorry, tiredofwhiners, I shouldn't whine about your whining, because I'm tired of whiners too." Firkins, anyone?

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

The late Jesse Helms got a predictably ambivalent sendoff from the Propeller community. "Former Sen. Jesse Helms Dies At 86," with 110 votes and 329 comments, revealed a pretty wide spectrum of opinion about the North Carolina senator. Hanyman represented what we might call the negative camp: "I guess hell has a new resident." ADAGUY found this appalling: "Regardless of political, moral, and ethical differences with Helms, bitter and hate-filled remarks are better left unsaid!" But it was V.O.R. who contributed a surprisingly personal slant on Helms, which deserves to be quote at length: "I knew Jesse growing up. He sometimes attended our church and his daughter taught my sister's first-grade class. Every night (ironically, before Walter Cronkite came on) we would see Jesse's editorial on WRAL in Raleigh. I knew then that I felt a certain distaste for his views. He was arrogant and condescending. Not physically imposing, but more like a Southern Baptist fire-and-brimstone preacher shouting out his condemnation. A bully without the brawn. Hard to relate that to the quiet little man who would sometimes bring us candy at school.... I remember him as the first political fearmonger I recall. [Yet] I won't overly condemn him today. I don't mess with the dead (don't like the karmic implications)." A handful of other stories, including "Jesse Helms: American Garbage" and "Farewell to Jesse Helms, Provincial Redneck" provoked similar differences of opinion. And finally, on a lighter note, there was "Rod Stewart Apologizes For 30 Years Of Crap Music," with 176 votes and 23 comments. "Apologies accepted!" said SenorCoconut. Citing the lyrics to "Cut Across, Shorty," hefaa1 chimed in: "If you can identify what Python Lee Jackson album (yes, album, not tape, cassette, CD) those lyrics came from, you're way too old. I can, but it's time for my nap and I get cranky if I don't get my nap." For BronxBomber, though, there was one thing to avoid at all costs: Rod the Mod in his tartan wardrobe. "As long as he didn't sing his songs in a plaid kilt," he said, "I'm OK with it. (I hear he has knobby knees)." And, as we all know, hot legs.

Tags: week-in-review, wir

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