The Schrug

The Schrug is my “personal” blog, not my “business” blog, so I don’t know if anyone reading this would be the slightest bit interested in what I have to say about running a one-person IT consulting company. But if that does for some reason excite you, you have your chance to hear me chat for an hour one week from today. Click here for details.

Another great read from the New Yorker. Packer shows that while Republicans have been able to win recent elections by tapping into voters’ conceptual dislike of taxes and politicians, they are losing their places in government because they don’t care much about governing. Just as Americans hate Congress but love their own senators and representatives, they hate big government but like the government programs that they benefit from. (They even want government to provide help for other Americans, like Katrina victims.) If you get worried sometimes that the Hannities, Limbaughs, and Severins are saying what a vast number of Americans are thinking, you’ll get comfort from this article.

Well, when two grownup airplanes love each other very much …

1568: Mary Queen of Scots was defeated at the Battle of Langside and immediately fled to North England.

1607: Jamestown founded.

1846: The United States formally declared war on Mexico after several days of fighting.

1938: Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded the New Orleans’s jazz classic, When the Saints Go Marching In, on Decca Records.

1940: Winston Churchill gave his first speech as prime minister: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

1958: VP Nixon attacked in Venezuela.

1973: Tennis male chauvinist Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Smith Court, 6-2, 6-1 in front of a world-wide television audience. He would lose to Billie Jean King later that year.

1981: Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca as he drove through a crowd in St. Peter’s Square, Rome.

1985: MOVE cult building fire in Philadelphia.

Other birthdays:

1842: Arthur Sullivan

1882: Georges Braque

1907: Daphne Du Maurier

1914: Joe Louis

1926: Bea Arthur

1927: Clive Barnes

1930: Mike Gravel

1931: Jim Jones

1939: Harvey Keitel

1941: Ritchie Valens

1950: Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel

All in all, a pretty dull day in history.

I found the following “novel” in a box of childhood memorabilia. It appears to have been written in stages (often one sentence at a time) between September 13 and December 16, 1974. I was seven. Illustrations are credited to David Schrag, Erik Rosado, and Pike Porter, classmates of mine at the now-defunct Walden Elementary School at 88th and Central Park West.

Once upon a time there was an astronaut. This astronaut went to the moon. Suddenly he was surrounded by moonmen. He walked up to one of them. “Can you speak English?” he asked. “Xchyzpeaioulxbd!?”" said the mooonman. He walked up to the king. “Your man is dumb,” he said. Now, the king could understand English and when he heard the astronaut say those words he said “[meaningless, wordless, scribble].” Then two moonmen grabbed him off, you see what the king had said was in English “Take him to be brainwashed!”

In the brainwashing room there was a tape recorder and it kept saying “I am a slave I am a slave.” After a few hours the astronaut came out and fell down. Then he got up and said “I am a slave.” Then he fell down again. When he got up it was night. He stumbled in to the place where the moonmen were having coffee. He knocked down the king’s coffee. The king said (in English) “Now you are my slave! You must do what I tell you to!” Then the king and his men walked out of the room. Now the astronaut was all alone. He ran after the king but the king was gone.

Then the astronaut (or rather slave) lay down and went to sleep. In the morning the new “slave” woke up. Then he saw the king.

“Get up!” yelled the king. “It is time for you to marry my daughter! Here she is!”

“Yuk.” said the astronaut. “I don’t wanna marry her!”

“You will!”

“I won’t!”

“Will!”

“Won’t!”

“Will!”

“Will?”

“Will!”

“Won’t!”

“Look this is getting silly!” said the king. “I know,” said the slave. “If you marry my daughter,” said the king, “you shall have your freedom.”

“I will take …”

“Well?”

“Your daughter!”

“I was afraid of that,” said the king. “Mary! Take off your costume! Here is who you married.”

“And now I will take off my costume,” said the king.

Then, after the Royal Wedding the prince and the princess went back to Earth. When they landed the astronaut who started like an astronaut and returned like a prince became the most famous man in the U.S.

THE END

[The assignment was not graded, but the teacher commented: "I have thoroughly enjoyed your wonderful story. And I can't wait to see what the next one will be. Would you like a new journal that doesn't keep falling apart?"]

Moral: If your seven-year-old takes several months to produce an inane piece of literary garbage, don’t despair. He or she may one day grow up to write an inane blog.

… you must read “Out of Print” by Eric Alterman in The New Yorker. It’s a great look at the past, present, and future of American newspapers and journalism in general.

As I noted recently, lots of people like to talk about the importance of the economy in this election, even though very few people have the slightest understanding of economic theory or important economic truths. One way to improve the situation would be to force everyone to read James Surowiecki’s columns in the New Yorker such as this one, which takes a fresh look at the American dream of owning a house.

In December 2000, I proposed what I thought was a perfect way to settle the election mess. George Bush would become President and Joe Lieberman would become Vice President. Through some other machinations, it would be ensured that there would be a 50-50 split in the Senate, with Lieberman able to cast a tie-breaking vote if necessary. I thought that a power sharing compromise like this was the only way to fairly represent the views of what was obviously a divided electorate.

As far as I know, I was the only person alive to think this was a good idea. So keep that in mind as you contemplate my next suggestion.

We have now reached the point in the Democratic nomination process where no outcome is going to be perceived as fair by the losing candidate. It doesn’t matter who wins Pennsylvania, whether or not there are revotes in Michigan and Florida, or whether the superdelegates base their votes on their own personal feelings, the results from their home districts, or the results from the states as a whole. No matter what happens, millions of people are going to believe that this nomination was “stolen.”

There are only two people who can prevent a catastrophe for the Democratic Party: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. One of these people is going to have to step up and make a personal sacrifice for the good of the party and the country. They are both smart people, good politicians, and committed civil servants. They need to get in a room together and work this out. If they can’t settle an “argument” like this among “friends,” how are they going to do when it comes to negotiating difficult compromises with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, etc.?

I don’t really care what kind of deal they make. If I were Barack, maybe I’d accept the Vice Presidency, three cabinet picks, a second-round Supreme Court Justice, and a promised endorsement in 2016. If I were Hillary, maybe I’d be willing to take Senate Majority Leader (we’d have to get Harry Reid to agree to step out of the way), plus support for mandatory health care coverage, renegotiation of NAFTA, an ambassadorship for Bill of my choosing (Australia, perhaps), and a policy to be named later. Anyone who thinks its unseemly for a politician to give something in order to get something doesn’t have a clue as to what politics is all about.

Letting the process play out with the understanding that the loser will endorse the winner is insufficient. Unless we can get both of those people to look us in the eye and say they are genuinely pleased with and excited about the result, the bitterness is going to last for a long time and whoever is President — assuming it’s a Democrat — is going to have a much tougher time governing.

I think I’ve discovered a new mental illness. It’s called Severinitis. Persons suffering from this disease are under the delusion that they can somehow get Jay Severin to soften his position or rhetoric on anything by presenting a rational and factual argument. They feel a compulsion to attempt this feat no matter how many times they try and fail.

I suffered my latest bout of Severinitis this afternoon.

David: Hi, Jay. I spent a fair amount of time preparing for this call, so I hope you’ll do me the honor of listening to me for a while and not cutting me off right away.

 

Jay: You do yourself and us the honor of performing well, so please proceed.

 

David: OK, so you said that because of Barack Obama’s background, he should be subject to a higher level of scrutiny, so –

 

Jay: No, I said that he might is not an unreasonable notion.

 

David: OK. So would it be reasonable to subject him to that higher level of scrutiny on the air right now?

 

Jay: Why not?

 

David: OK, so what I’m going to do is set up a little stall next to yours in the marketplace of ideas, and offer some additional information — some truthful information — and I’d like to do it in the form of a quiz, if I might.

 

Jay: OK.

 

David: So the first question is, you point out that Barack Obama spent some time outside of the country while he was growing up. Do you know where he spent that time?

 

Jay: Couldn’t care less.

 

David: It’s irrelevant?

 

Jay: Irrelevant to me, and I think to most Americans. It think the only thing that’s relevant here, again, is that you combine someone about whom we know nothing, or very, very little, tantamount to nothing, compared to other presidential campaigns. Here’s a guy who might be president in a few months, about whom we know very little, and who has, who shares a background, heritage, and other things, which happen coincidentally to be common to a people who are in the business of killing us. And so that might cause people to say “hmm, maybe I need to know a little bit more about this fellow than I know so far.” That that would be a curious thing –

 

David: Well, I, I certainly –

 

Jay: [inaudible] than if his middle name was, you know, O’Reilly. Yeah, I think that’s entirely understandable.

 

David: Right, I agree, it might help to know a little bit more, but you don’t seem to be interested in getting that information yourself, so I’ll let you know –

 

Jay: David, can we stop being tedious? If you have something to add, please do.

 

David: Fine.

 

Jay: Otherwise all your preparation will be for naught.

 

David: Obama was not schooled in Africa as you said last week, but rather in Indonesia. In Jakarta, Indonesia.

 

Jay: Much more a hotbed of Islamofacism than Africa, so thank you for the upgrade.

 

David: Now you’ve pointed out that Barack Hussein Obama shares his name with his father. Could you tell us at what age his father left the household — [Jay hangs up on me after about 2 minutes 45 seconds; better than the 15 seconds or so I got on Friday]

 

Jay: Well, I hope not. You shouldn’t be hearing anything, except this:

Jay then simulated a test tone from the old days of television. In fact, what one hears after being disconnected is silence, followed by a “fast busy” signal.

The answer to question number two, by the way, is that Barack Obama fils was two years old when Barack Obama pere left Hawaii to return to Harvard. I had three more questions ready for Jay, which he must be glad he avoided:

1. True or false: While in Indonesia, Obama attended a type of Muslim school known as a madrassa. (False, of course.)

The other two questions were designed to counter Jay’s point that calling the candidate “Barack Hussein Obama” is fair game because that is how Obama refers to himself.

2. True or false: On his web sites and on the cover of his books, Obama identifies himself using his middle name. (False, of course.)

3. What was the caption next to Obama’s picture in his high school yearbook. (Answer: Barry Obama. Yeah — this is clearly someone who identified very closely with his Arabic-Muslim heritage.)

As fate would have it, the next caller was a fellow named Jerry, who was also a Severinitis sufferer:

Jay: Jerry, from Roslindale. If I’d known that was A-hole David, we wouldn’t have taken the call. Jerry, from Roslindale, how are ya?

 

Jerry: Not too bad, how are you?

 

Jay: I’m well, thank you sir.

 

Jerry: Good. I just wanted to follow up on what that last caller was saying, and then I want to take it into [inaudible] about the Muslim extremists.

 

Jay: Sure thing.

 

Jerry: Basically, the … do you consider General Abizaid — should we look at his background because of his Muslim heritage?

 

Jay: I don’t believe that General Abizaid is about to be President of the United States.

 

Jerry: So the only criteria is the President of the United States.

 

Jay: I’d say that’s the only one I’m discussing.

 

Jerry: OK, so how about Omar Bradley, who had a Muslim background?

 

Jay: Omar Bradley, is he living?

 

Jerry: World War II hero.

 

Jay: Yeah, he’s not living is he?

 

Jerry: No.

 

Jay: I would say that case is moot, then, wouldn’t you?

 

Jerry: You don’t question how American he is because of his first name?

 

Jay: You’re missing the point, my friend.

 

Jerry: OK, well let’s forget about that. I would be more concerned, however, and I –

 

Jay: Let me ask you a question, wise guy. Since we learned today that there are thousands of illegal aliens in this country registered in flight schools right now, —

 

Jerry: I–

 

Jay: Since we learned today — Shut up and listen for a second if you want to stay on the radio, it’s up to you. We learned today there are thousands of illegal aliens in this country registered in flight schools. If you headed up the division of the FBI that was going to take a look at the thousands of illegal aliens now enrolled in flight schools across the United States and you didn’t have all the manpower and money that you might like and you had to prioritize whom you would review first, would you pick first the people with Arabic Muslim names or would you pick people with Irish or Italian names?

 

Jerry: Uh, –

 

Jay: Thanks, Jerry, thanks a lot. [Jay disconnects Jerry.] Yep. The prosecution rests. Anybody who doesn’t see that we have enemies and that those enemies remain discernable by virtue of certain traits and backgrounds, anybody who doesn’t wonder more about Muslims praying aloud in the airport, moving around, standing up, you know, asking for extra seat belt extensions — I’m talking about the case of the Muslim imams who were in Minnesota going to Dallas, and they were acting strangely in the airport — anybody who isn’t worried when they see people of Middle Eastern background acting suspiciously is a fool. Anyone who equates the same behavior taking place involving a bunch of Catholic nuns and at any given moment across the airport in another gate, a bunch of young to middle-aged Arabic men who are acting suspiciously, and then again, at the other gate, Catholic nuns doing the same thing — anybody like Jerry and David, who just called, who think that those behaviors should attract and warrant equal scrutiny, that you should be equally worried or unworried about the nuns and the Muslims who are doing the same thing, anybody who’s that stupid, anybody who’s so politically fascistically correct that you think that despite the discernable traits of people among whom are our sworn enemy, if you would equate the behavior of the nuns, you would profile at the airport as many Catholic nuns as you would young Arabic men with backpacks who are saying their prayers aloud, if you would give the same level, if you would devote to each group the same level of scrutiny, Jerry and David, then you are — you can read about yourselves by reading Darwin. You are the fools, you are the inferior creatures who evolve away. I don’t intend to join you.

Pretty incredible, eh? He complains we don’t have enough information about Barack Obama, I call up to give him the information, and a few minutes later he’s turned my comments into a discussion about flight schools and an incident from November 2006. (They were going to Phoenix, by the way, Jay, not Dallas.) It’s the same change-the-subject tactic he employed against me last week. Of course, he can only do this when we are no longer able to respond.

Now although Jerry and I were unable to overcome our mental illness, it does seem that we rocked Jay’s world just a little bit. After Jerry’s call, he went on the defensive to a degree unusual even for him. Jerry’s call finished around 5:45, maybe 5:50. Jay’s show runs until 7:00 pm. Perhaps Jay was afraid that other callers might agree with us, so he took only two more calls for the rest of the show. As a substitute, he serenaded his audience with rants like these:

Jay: [I want to say something about] David and Jerry. I am absolutely and very earnestly appalled and frightened, I’m frightened and disgusted at the notion that there are two people in this entire radio audience, let alone two in a row, who may not be the only two, I am disgusted and frightened that there are two ostensibly grown people who take umbrage at the notion that we have a guy named Barack Hussein Obama who may become President of the United States and that that ought to make Americans curious, a little more curious about his background, someone about whom we know nothing, who was a state senator a few years ago, and his name is Barack Hussein Obama, an Arabic first name, an Arabic middle name, an Arabic last name, a Muslim middle name, Muslim school, Muslim father, Muslim grandfather — given the circumstances of the moment on planet Earth, the notion that he should receive scrutiny — and I go back to the example, if you’re at an airport, and you have two groups of people out loud performing religious services, kind of in a loud and unreasonable way, and you find one group is the Mormon Boys Tabernacle Choir or the other is Catholic nuns and a third is Middle Eastern men, or Muslims? This is so stupid that it’s not even worth discussing. If you don’t think the Muslim men are the ones that you check first, if you don’t think that they deserve a more immediate or higher level of scrutiny than the Catholic nuns, you’re just being intellectually backward and obstinate for laughs, or you really are so stupid that you shouldn’t be allowed out on the street without someone accompanying you [inaudible] or something. This is what worries me the most. [Read slowly and carefully now ... Jay's thought process gets a little loopy here.] If I were a member of a group that wanted to take over this country — now hear me clearly and don’t misquote me — were I a member of a group, real or imagined, were I a member of a group, and that group had religions affiliations as well as cultural and political affiliations, and I had tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, no, millions of my people surging into this country, setting up shop, identifying themselves as, well, let’s call them X-Men, OK? For no particular reason. If the X-Men came here and the X-Men regarded themselves apparently as X-Men first and Americans second, and there are millions of them, and part of the routine preaching in the X-Men house of worship is the death and destruction of the West in general and of Americans in particular, and if I found that in over the course of, say, ten years every single — not most, not the vast majority of them — every single act of murder and violence against Americans was both preached and perpetrated by X-Men, and I saw their numbers continue to grow, and I learned as I heard about one group (I won’t name them, but I happened to have heard about a group just last night, in the middle of the night, listening to BBC, either last night or Saturday night) that there’s a certain group in this country whose young people are being encouraged by their religious leaders to go into journalism, law, and politics — journalism, law, and politics — by way of changing the system, by way of changing the system how? If the X-Men believe you[?] — this imaginary group, the X-Men — if the X-Men regard themselves first and foremost as X-Men and only secondarily if at all as Americans, and now they have stated their intentions in addition to their sermons we hear so much about to go into political science, journalism, and law in order to change the system… If, David and Jerry, if you think that doesn’t require, doesn’t spark any curiosity or shouldn’t require a higher level of scrutiny than if a bunch of Irish-Americans did it, then again, you’re just going to evolve away pretty quickly. We’re just going to lose you off the scale, because you’re too stupid to survive. We’re talking about the most fundamental set of perceptions available to human beings: Are there people among me who mean me harm? Are there or aren’t there? Well, there are. And if there are, am I able to discern who they are? Not all of them, and not flawlessly, but if I know, if I establish as a fact there are people among me who wish me harm, me and mine, then am I able to distinguish, discern, identify them? If I am, if I put together Facts A and Fact B, Facts A and B, if there are people among whom I’m living, who wish me death and destruction, and if I’m able to discern, distinguish, or identify them, for me not to pay attention to that, for me not to devote a little bit more of my time, a little bit higher level of scrutiny to that than I would to people among me who mean me no harm, then I’d be like you: the really stupid end of the animal kingdom that evolves away. I mean, you’re just a step above mollusks. I think you should probably bow to and salute mollusks, if that’s the way you think. [Note to Jay: Mollusks have been around for more than 500 million years. I don't think they're going to evolve away any time soon.] And there is no more dangerous, there has never been in American culture ever, there has never been a threat as grave as the threat that you just heard from A-hole David and A-hole Jerry. Imbeciles who wrap themselves in a new dogma of political correctitude and say to you at the subway station or at the airport you have no right either to search or investigate or even suspect in the privacy of your own mind, your own home, late at night as you fall asleep in bed, you have no right morally, certainly not legally, to suspect anybody, even though you know there are killers living among you who have already killed and who are planning now to kill more, you have no right to try and figure out who those killers might be even though on a factual basis you can discern who they are. You have no right to do that. And that any attempts or any inclinations to do so make you a racist? That is the most grave threat to the continued existence of the United States of America than anything in our history. Far and away more of threat to us than anything in our history. Far, far greater than any of the false sins of the politically correct (i.e., bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, sunspots, fluctuations in the stock market, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa). Of all of the sins they falsely accuse us, reasonable people who are trying to survive, none of them (even were they true) begin remotely to approach in their catastrophic importance, in their profundity, the importance of making sure that people like David and Jerry are recognized for the fools they are, and we make sure that their blind political fascism doesn’t prevent us from doing the most basic human thing we need to do, and that is survive, that is protect ourselves, it means discern, distinguish, identify a threat and to make sure that we are not harmed. That does not apply to any group of all people, but it certainly applies to some people within certain discernible groups. And again I bring you back to the airport. If you’re the head of airport security, and you toss a coin, you flip a coin to decide whether to investigate a bunch of nuns who praying out loud, and they’re acting a little unusually, and they’re praying out loud, Catholic nuns, and over here you have a bunch of Islamic clerics who are praying out loud and doing something a little unusual — if you have to flip a coin to determine which of those two incidents, if either, should cause you any concern or ought to be given some scrutiny, well then you’re like David and Jerry. And the day that most of us, the day that 51 out of 100 of us become like David and Jerry, there will be no more us.

A little later on, Jay claimed he had a nine-year perfect record of not being guilty of hypocrisy,

notwithstanding idiots like Dave and Jerry. And I like some of your flavors, though, Dave and Jerry. I must say I buy sometimes the Chocolate Fudge Packer Pal, which — Dave, I think that was yours. You invented that one. [But no one should accuse you of homophobia, right, Jay?]

Jay also compared Jerry and me to Nazi collaborators in Vichy France, claiming that

no one is going to hurt us unless they hurt us from the inside, and they’ll only hurt us from the inside by finding collaborators. And the people at the Council on American Islamic Relations couldn’t be any happier than to have people like David and Jerry. Just stick to the ice cream, would you, David and Jerry, who called in earlier to slam me for discussing the notion that some people might warrant some extra scrutiny than other people based on who they are, what their heritage is, and all that. So I’m sure that at an airport, as I said, Dave and Jerry, instead of making ice cream — which they’re good at — if David and Jerry were in charge of airport security at Logan, they’d see a bunch of young Muslim men doing their prayers very loudly and sweating profusely and doing odd things, and then they’d see a bunch of Catholic nuns, and then they’d also see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and they’d say “we just don’t know who to search first, because no one deserves extra scrutiny, because all the people are equally innocent and wonderful.

It’s simply amazing to me that this guy makes a million dollars a year spewing this nonsense. Hey, WTKK: I’ve got an idea for you. Want to save some money in these tight financial times? Tell you what. I’ll do Jay’s job, and I’ll do it better and cheaper. Hell, I’d be willing to do it for a mere $900K. Have your people call my people — preferably on the air.

Why am I spending any of my time on this guy? I have no idea. But I can’t help it. Here’s his latest offense.

Jay, along with at least one other radio talk show host, likes to refer to the junior senator from Illinois as “Barack Hussein Obama.” Why does he do this? Because, he says, that while this country is at war with radical Islam, there are several “facts” about Obama that are worth noting. Among them:

• That Obama’s father was a Muslim.
• That Obama’s grandfather was a Muslim.
• That Obama went to a madras ([sic] — Madras is a city in India (and Oregon) and a type of fabric; I’m pretty sure Jay means “madrassa,” which is a type of Muslim school.
• That Obama “grew up in Africa.”

I won’t bother arguing the first two points. Even if they are true, they are completely irrelevant. Obama’s father left the family when Obama was two years old, and he was raised by his mother, his maternal grandparents, and others. (The Chicago Tribune wrote an extensive background piece on Obama’s childhood last year.)

Point three — that Obama attended a Muslim school — was a false claim that has been thoroughly and completely debunked and debunked and debunked.

Point four is a Severin original, as far as I can tell. I’ve never heard anyone else make that claim, probably because it is demonstrably untrue. What is Jay thinking? I can only imagine that Jay read somewhere that Obama spent some time as a youngster in Jakarta. I suppose the word Jakarta looks and sounds somewhat similar to Dakar and Lusaka, which are indeed in Africa. And of course, Obama’s father’s family was originally from Kenya — also in Africa. So perhaps Jay assumes that Jakarta is in Africa as well. But Jakarta, of course, is in Indonesia — which is most decidedly not in Africa.

So which is it Jay? Are you being intentionally dishonest? Or merely grossly incompetent?

I called in again on Friday to set the record straight, but after one sentence out of my mouth — following a 90 minute wait on hold — he hung up on me after accusing me of misquoting him (which I hadn’t). Finally, at 6:15 that day someone corrected him — sort of — about the Africa angle. Unfortunately, the caller was also confused on the facts, and thought that Obama had gone to school in the Philippines. Jay was quick to issue a correction, in his own style:

OK, I’ll tell you what. Until I know specifically — I don’t know the years and so I could be wrong, so I will hold that in abeyance and I thank you for that criticism.

Jay later took the opportunity to restate his position (and, as is his wont) to amplify (I’ve added a few of comments in red):

Neither you [the caller] nor I know [Obama's connection to Islam]. Your statement is like Nora O’Donnell’s statement when she was talking to Chris Matthews last night, when she said “He’s not a Muslim.” Listen, she only knows what she’s read in the paper. Nora O’Donnell no more knows the religious or theological proclivities of Barack Obama than she knows whether or not I have a birthmark on my left buttock. Although there was that night — she may actually know that. How does your wife feel when you say such things, Jay? But anyway, she doesn’t know that. You don’t know it. I don’t know it. So you’re calling Barack Obama a liar? …. I’m sure you can appreciate that the mere fact that we are debating these things, and maybe, and I don’t mean to say this in a way that is in any way argumentative or offensive, I honestly don’t, (then how do you mean it?) but if you have been born and have grown up in America, the very notion that we are debating these fine points of in which countries — like I may be wrong about Africa or certain years about Africa, you know maybe a madrassa (hey, you got the word right this time) in the Philippines instead, he may have gone to a radical Muslim school in the Philippines instead of in Africa for certain years (actually, he never went to a madrassa or any other type of Muslim school) — the mere fact that we are debating the fine points of a guy who may become President of the United States who has Muslim connections (I enjoy falafel and hummus; do I therefore also have Muslim connections?) and has a background like his is so very extraordinary. I’m not saying it’s necessarily bad though I’m not going to be coy and tell you I think it’s good. I only can tell you that having been born and raised here in America and made my life’s work the culture of this country, you know, I know that people find it wicked queer. People? What people? If you mean you find it wicked queer, say so. They may not in the end find it sufficiently troubling that it is significant or determinative but it is a wicked queer thing to be holding a candidate election for president in which one of the candidates has this much of a connection (you mean that the family of his father, who left him when he was two, were Muslims? that much of a connection?) to a faith or a group that has declared war on the United States of America, under which there is a current state of war, of murderous slaughter against our people. Ah, so we are at war with the entire Muslim faith, are we? No wonder you want to kill them. The notion there could be any connection, no matter how remote, that we should even be asked to consider it or to parse it is what makes this so extraordinary. And I’ll tell you, you guys can’t have it both ways. I don’t mean again to be argumentative, [caller], but you can’t have it both ways. Please don’t tell me America is close-minded, racist, biased, bigoted, prejudiced, all these things. I’m not sure a lot of people are saying that about “America,” Jay. I think they’re just saying it about certain Americans, like you. The mere fact that a candidate like Barack Obama, with his beliefs, and his heritage, the mere fact that he could be as serious a candidate for president as he is means that we are the most open, wonderful country Yes, we are so open, we welcome all comers from all nations. Right. — of course a lot of us already knew that, a lot of us are not like Obama-Mama, Michelle Obama, who only recently for the first time felt pride about our country. Most of us know this is the most wonderful place on Earth. And Barack Obama’s candidacy proves it. Which is why you’re such a strong supporter of his, correct? I just want to know: If Barack Obama wins — and this is a trick question, I know this answer, and so do you — if Barack Obama wins, can we stop hearing people bitch about how racist America is? Can we put that to rest? If Barack Obama is elected by a majority of voters in the United States of America, (You mean like Al Gore was in 2000?) does that mean that we can now say that it is a false claim to assert that America is a biased, bigoted, racist country? No, watch and see. We’ll elect a black president and we’ll still have to give in to people who argue we’re a racist country. Give in how? What are you talking about? Although among people who are intellectually honest (Like you, Jay? Give me a break) and adroit to any, even minimal, degree, the notion that we could elect Barack Hussein Obama (there you go again) and you’d still declare that we’re a racist country is laughably ludicrous, frighteningly ludicrous. But it will still happen. Oh, and if Mrs. Clinton — ahh! ahh! ahh! — pardon me, if Mrs. Clinton becomes president will that be the end of bitching about how phallocentric, patriarchal, sexist a country we are? Nah.

Too bad radio talk show hosts keep their jobs because of their ratings and their ability to refrain from saying “um” on the air, rather than on the strength of their logic, accuracy, or intelligence. Jimmy Severino would have been off the air a long time ago.