The World Has Become a Satire of Itself

I miss Art Buchwald.  Not just because he was the only man whose tennis fantasies were wilder than mine. (He imagined himself playing against Andre Agassi -- who couldn't handle his serve!)

I miss him because he understood that even though he was paid handsomely to satirize politics and government, "You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.”

He understood this back when there were still one or two sane people to be found in government, even in Washington.  Now that the last vestige of sanity has vanished from our public affairs, we need Art more than ever.

Consider:

--Virginia Thomas, whose husband is a justice of the Supreme Court, recently called Anita Hill, who is a professor at Brandeis, leaving a message that Prof. Hill should "pray about" and apologize for her testimony at the confirmation hearings for Justice Thomas -- nearly 20 years ago.  Hill told the Senate under oath that Thomas had sexually harassed her.  She said she wouldn't apologize now for testifying truthfully then.

--A memo recently surfaced about the days in June when hell must have been empty, and all the devils were at a meeting called by the Koch brothers, whose wealth probably exceeds the combined wealth of the entire Third World and whose goal is to repeal all laws that inhibit the "culture of prosperity."  The 210 attendees included Glenn Beck, David Chavern, No. 2 guy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Fred Malek, Karl Rove's master of mischief, and a gaggle of top executives from health insurance companies, oil companies, Wall Street  and big time real estate developers.  They discussed ways to use money to make certain that all the right people won the 2010 elections.

--San Francisco police arrested an armed man who intended to kill a bunch of liberals.  He said he got the "evidence" against his intended victims from the aforementioned Mr. Beck.

--Sharron Angle, who wants to be elected U.S. Senator from Nevada, told a bunch of Latina students that she couldn't possibly be an anti-Mexican racist because the kids in her audience all "looked like Asians."

--A republican legislator in Florida introduced an anti-immigration bill patterned after Arizona's -- except that it exempts white immigrants from its harsh provisions. The Republican candidate for governor immediately supported it.

--Christine O'Donnell, who is not a witch but the Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from Delaware, was shocked, shocked to learn (from her opponent, during a debate) that the First Amendment  prohibits "an establishment of religion" in the United States.

Alaska. (Stop laughing already.) Joe Miller, the Republican and Tea Party candidate for the United States Senate held a town hall meeting recently. When a reporter pressed for answers to questions Miller didn't like, private security guards hired by his campaign - two of whom were moonlighting, active duty military - seized the journalist, placed him under citizen's arrest and handcuffed him, then threatened to do the same to two other reporters who were taking pictures and asking what was going on.

Buchwald nailed it.  You couldn't possibly make this stuff up.