This morning, there’s a pair of guys on the radio before Laura Ingram comes on (grumble mutter mumble, I just saw a clip of her on the teevee saying that the popularity of the show 24 is a national referendum for torture), and they’re laughing about something Ted Turner said in a talk somewhere. Im paraphrasing, but it was something like:
One of the things that the President said that really bothered me…after the 9/11 attacks, he said, “You’re either with us, or against us.” And I thought, I haven’t even made up my mind yet, I want to read some things, learn more about what happened…
They they go on making fun of him, saying “oh, he hadn’t decided yet whether he was for America or for the terrorists.” Various “what’s he smoking” jokes, what the hell is wrong with him, etc. Ending with “you know, in a Time of War, this should be considered treason.”
But christ, what’s wrong with that? I mean the extremism was even inherent in their jokes and they didn’t realize it. After I got over the shock of the attacks, my first reaction was not Welp I better get out there and support my President, my reaction was Why? Why did this even happen? And if a guy wants to research the issue and determine whether it was his goverment’s fuckupery that led to this point, what’s wrong with that?
But here’s the kicker: ten minutes later they had a story about an old guy who drove his car into a construction area and got into an accident, because he was following his car’s GPS instructions rather than the “construction ahead” signs. It was a Mercedes, and either the guy was German or they just joked that he was because of the car.
“So the guy just followed what his GPS told him.”
“Well, Germans, you know…they like to follow directions.”
“Ha ha, yeah, Germans really got themselves in trouble by following directions, I’m talking world history here, you know?”
The irony just about knocked me over. It was one of the few times I had the urge to call into a radio show.
