It was the sort of news story where you get a couple of lines in, laugh in astonishment, and start over to make sure you got it right the first time. Then you read it again, just to make REALLY sure.

The English tabloid, the Mirror, is reporting that Putsch was planning to address the Parliament of the European Union in order to try to shore up some support for his proposed attack on Iraq, but that the idea was scuttled when the European Union refused to guarantee that Putsch would get a standing ovation from Parliament members when he strode in to begin his speech.

Now, the Mirror is a tabloid, and has what can only be described as a gleeful approach to the news. The story should be taken with a grain of salt.

But George is well known for being petty, brittle and vindictive. Nearly all his public appearances are carefully staged, with only supporters in the audiences, and protesters and demonstrators shunted off to outside his line of sight, in the grotesquely-named "First Amendment Zones".

At that travesty of a press conference last week, he actually blurted out that the order of questioning and the people allowed to ask questions was "staged" – his word for it – which left many wondering if the people allowed to ask questions also had to get the questions pre-approved. Shades of Soviet Russia! His snub of 82 year old Helen Thomas, praised by some of his less politically astute supporters as a sterling example of what reporters who don’t support him deserve, reeked of political and personal cowardice.

Somewhere in Europe, there is this generation’s equivalent of Charlie Chaplin, ready to do a 21^st century remake of "The Little Dictator." One can just picture a weak playboy type pummeling a soft white puffy little Karl Rove chest with his soft, white, puffy little hands and screaming a two-year old’s tantrum over the fact that the set directors hadn’t put enough flags on the stage for him.

I would guess the participants in such an actor would not be getting invited to any White House dinners over the next couple of years. In fact, this White House, with its strange mix of bellicosity and fear of confrontation, would probably try very hard to pretend that such a movie didn’t exist, while their whore media on cable TV and AM radio blasted it up one side and down the other. After all, that’s how they usually respond to anything resembling a domestic challenge.

We see how it works in the developing campaign. Putsch will never respond to anything the various democratic candidates say, won’t even acknowledge their existence, let alone respond to their ideas. But Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and all the other dirtbags of the right have already started smear campaigns against every Democrat in sight. John Kerry looks like Frankenstein’s monster. Carol Moseley Braun can’t remember what she majored in at college. (She graduated from the Chicago University of LAW and became an ATTORNEY; my guess is she gave a sarcastic response to an incredibly stupid question). Dennis Kucinich is an unstable liar. Howard Dean is a nobody who can’t get elected except in a socialist state. Oh, and everything is to be blamed on Clinton’s penis. And so on. The whispering campaigns have been launched, among the tiny white clapboard churches and the chambers of commerce in thousands of small towns, a river of bile and hate and superstition among the bulwarks of what used to be America’s moral center.

That’s the structure of the Republican party today: brittle weakness at the top, supported by self-righteous viciousness, with the whole thing lubricated by a captive junkyard dog media.

The story of the standing ovation demand may or may not be true, but it illuminates a great truth in how the left is supposed to deal with this vast, well-financed propaganda machine.

Someone – probably Shakespeare – wrote that the tyrant fears laughter more than the assassin’s bullet. Certainly that is true of weak and brittle leaders, and even more so of their sullen and thuggish supporters. Ridicule is pure poison to these strutting and self-important types, a weapon they cannot fight except through utter repression.

Liberals tend to be cerebral and earnest, qualities that create liberalism. A thoughtful person will end up with a different view of the world than someone who merely blindly reacts to the world. The trouble is that thoughtful and earnest people don’t hold the entertainment value of a howling demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or Mike Savage.

Put it this way: if the average person is confronted with two scenes at once, one being two people playing a quiet game of chess, and the other a enraged and berserk monkey screaming, shaking the bars of his cage and throwing his feces around, people are going to watch the monkey. That’s why Rush Limbaugh attracts bigger audiences than Jim Hightower.

So liberals have to be entertaining, and they have to do so without embracing the morals and tactics – or lack thereof – of the right.

Fortunately, right wingers tend to be stuffy, pompous, arrogant, self-important, huffy, sanctimonious, and prone to creating sacred cows for their followers to worship. They create weak and brittle leaders who expect standing ovations wherever they go. They are conceited and stupid.

This makes them a perfect target for humor. And the best part is that we don’t even have to make stuff up; truth will serve nicely. If Putsch didn’t actually demand a standing ovation (and unfortunately, we’ll probably never know unless someone thinks to ask Rumsfeld right after he’s spoken to a Frenchman and is still sizzling and not in self-control) there’s plenty of other stories that we know to be true. For example, the man cannot remember if he ever visited the space center before.

Liberalism has humor, of course. It can be a gentle and warm humor, like Molly Ivins. Or it can be raucous and hard-edged, like Bartcop. But judging from the howling hate both elicit from what Bartcop calls "dittomonkeys", it works quite effectively.

For a brilliant example on the web of sites that know how to skewer the right to the point where even Lynn Cheney has tried siccing lawyers on them just for having a picture of her on their page, go to Landover Baptist Church (http://www.landoverbaptist.org/) or the White House parody page, http://www.whitehouse.org.

How effective is it? Michael Moore’s book, "Stupid White Men", which is a skillful blend of humor and outrage, is number one on the New York Times best seller list. It has been in the top ten now for 48 weeks. The only book outselling it is the Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, and unlike Moore’s book, Atkins’ is in paperback.

Don’t believe the crap about how liberals can’t succeed in the media. Right wingers who gleefully point to MSNBC canceling the Phil Donahue show and who note that the "No Spin" slimearama outdrew it (remember the monkey allegory?) forget to mention that it was ALSO MSNBC’s top rated show. MSNBC canceled their best show because they are pitiful corporate whores who wanted another right wing voice, not because that’s what the public wants, but because that’s what their well-heeled and out-of-touch bosses want.

The fact is that 95% of American media is that way. We don’t have a free press any more.

Obviously, not everyone can be funny. I’m not. The doctors have tested. They’re quite sure.

But anyone who has a sense of mischief about them, just look at all those big, puffy, smug right wingers floating by, just waiting for a well-aimed pinprick. The results are more satisfying than having a water pistol in a room full of cats. (Cats have a sense of humor, of course. But it’s a very NASTY sense of humor).

So if you are confronted by an imperious sort who expects a standing ovation wherever he goes, slip a whoopie cushion on his throne.

It drives them nuts, and it’s fun besides.

Mar 8 2003

By Paul Gilfeather

GEORGE Bush pulled out of a speech to the European Parliament when MEPs wouldn't guarantee a standing ovation.

Senior White House officials said the President would only go to Strasbourg to talk about Iraq if he had a stage_managed welcome.

A source close to negotiations said last night: "President Bush agreed to a speech but insisted he get a standing ovation like at the State of the Union address.

"His people also insisted there were no protests, or heckling. "I believe it would be a crucial speech for Mr Bush to make in light of the opposition here to war. But unless he only gets adulation and praise, then it will never happen."

Mr Bush's every appearance in the US is stage_managed, with audiences full of supporters.

It was hoped he would speak after he welcomed Warsaw pact nations to Nato in Prague last November. But his refusal to speak to EU leaders face_to_face is seen as a key factor in the split between the US_UK coalition and Europe.

The source added: "Relations between the EU and the US are worsening fast _ this won't help."