Trolling for Baloneyfish in American Waters

Ah, Spring!  A cloudless, sunbright day: a perfect day for baloneyfish.

They're easy to catch.  Just cast a line into the waters of the American press, national or local.

See here, I've got a strike already. Big one, from the Wall Street Journal, whose waters usually teem with baloney fish.  This is from a guy who used to be, under Dubyuh, "deputy assistant secretary of defense for combatting weapons of mass destruction."  I am not making this up.  That's what Jack David was.  Now he's with the Hudson Institute and  his baloneyfish surfaced in today's WSJ under the headline: "The dangerous fantasy of a nuclear-free world."  He says nuclear zero is simply impossible in "the world as it exists."

I'm looking forward to subsequent articles about "dangerous fantasies," such as, say, a cancer-free world, a pollution-free world, a bunion-free world.  Think about this.  Imagine a world without bunions.  What would Dr. Scholl do for a living?  How would we survive without gelled toe spacers? Metatarsal surgeons would be lined up outside McDonald's begging for jobs flipping burgers -- and, frankly, who would want to eat a Big Mac flipped by a metatarsal surgeon?

The waters of my local rag are rich with baloneyfish, too.  Here's one I caught in today's paper: "Obamacare and his other fiscal posturing shall plunge us into the black pit of financial GNP turbulence.  This portends the end of our society, as we know it, and a moaning of our forefathers and our children's children."

Got that?  A moaning of our forefathers and our children's children.  Is that worse than the black pit of financial GNP turbulence?  What makes that pit black?  The turbulence?  The GNP?  And what sort of depravity induces one to engage in fiscal posturing?  Whatever, it sounds grave.

But the baloneyfish Catch of the Day, as most often happens, came from the Wall Street Journal op-eds.  Our old wingnut pal, Norman Podhoretz, jumping into the deepest end he could find, wrote:

"I would rather be ruled by the Tea Party than the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama."

Baloneyfish, as is well-known, are very ordinary-looking.  But when they swim into a hole, they excrete so much baloney that they die of baloney fever.

Just a word to the wise, Norman.