The Gates is a gated community. And those so afraid of the world? Vampires, werewolves and witches, oh my. Once upon a time, the three could take care of themselves (well, at least outside of Salem) but these days they're just one more member of the Cult of Victimhood.
Your tour guides through The Gates are the Monohan family who have just moved in so that Nick (Frank Grillo) can be the new police chief. Sarah (Marisol Nichols) doesn't seem to do much even when her husband confesses that the suspect he killed at his old job? He killed him in cold blood. He lied to everyone including her. It was no big deal, apparently. Frank and Sarah have two teenage children, Charlie and Dana. Thus far, this passes for 'normal.'
You've got werewolf and high school football player Brett who loses Andie to Charlie. No great loss since, it turns out, Andie is, like her mother, a succubus and, no, kiddies, that doesn't mean she gives good head, just that she drains their essence.
A trip to Doctor Peg (Victoria Platt) leads to the discovery that Andie is a succubus. And like many a suburbian doctor, she's also running a day spa from which she and her partner Devon (Chandra West) dispense potions and various charms. Yes, Dr. Peg is a witch.
Devon's got a hatred for Claire Radcliff (Rhona Mitra) who is the mother of young Emily and also a vampire as is her husband Dylan (Luke Mably). Are you following all of that?
We're not even done with the primary characters. In six episodes, they've already got a cast nearly as large as The Simpsons.
The left and the 'left' have a large cast as well so imagine our shock over how few bothered to weigh in on Barack Obama's Monday event: War Is Over Cause I Say So.
Barack flew to Atlanta, Georgia last Monday to declare that major combat operations were ended. Instead of using "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" as a prop, Obama used veterans. And service members. Turns out that before Barack gave his speech, something messy happened.
A bombing took place in Baghdad. Nothing surprising about that. However, this one claimed the lives of 2 US service members and left a third injured.
What to do? What to do?
Barry had a wave of Operation Happy Talk to ride to shore. So it was decided the thing to do was to just not announce the deaths. So there was no announcement on Monday. There was no accouncement on Tuesday. There was no announcement on Wednesday. Finally, Thursday night USF announced the deaths.
And we once thought Bully Boy Bush was the most deceitful person to occupy the Oval Office.
Helping Bush with all the lies were the MSM and conservative outlets. Remember those days? And how we on the left could take comfort that, no matter what, our side would never lie and whore for any politician. That's because we believe in truth and justice and the liberal way and --
Huh?
Yeah, that was a long time ago. Like Nick who just discovered he lives among vampires and werewolves, we had to discover we live among liars and whores. Last week just demonstrated how true that was.
Do you listen to KPFA?
Barack's speech was given on Monday. Tuesday on KPFA's The Morning Show, they were so desperate for filler they brought on a nun for positive motivation. The two hour show had time for affirmations but no time for Iraq. Aileen Alfandary, a legendary whore if ever there was one, didn't even mention the speech in her half hour 'news' breaks.
Strange, wasn't it?
Barack claimed (lied) that violence was down in Iraq. It was not down. Well you just know Dennis Bernstein was all up in Barry's grill on this, right? Wrong. A week's worth of Flashpoints was a week's worth of nothing. At one point, maybe when mispronouncing Lebanon, he would quickly note it was time to discuss the Gulf and quickly clarify he meant the Gulf of Mexico.
Flashpoints never addressed the speech. Kris Welch wastes three hours of KPFA air time each week. She ignored the speech Thursday, Friday and on her Saturday Talkies. As Pacifica Radio continues to teeter and risk going under, it is hilarious to watch them slit their own wrists by refusing to cover Iraq which, pay attention, was what saved Pacifica last decade. It's how they made their name to a new generation of listeners and how they achieved record highs in fundraising. Silly little whores, they were in such a hurry to indoctrinate that they forgot they were supposed to be a news outlet.
They were far from alone. Even with Elizabeth Dinovella picking up some slack at The Progressive (a move we applaud), there was nothing on Iraq all week, this despite offering six "prognosis" during the week.
And at The Nation, with all of it's multiple blogs, it was certainly strange that they couldn't find the time to post anything on the big speech.
Or was it? The magazine's Richard Kim, Katha Pollitt, Ari Berman, Ari Melber and Chris Hayes were all part of Journolist, remember? And remember how Chris counseled journalists about saving Barack from unpleasant news? (Jeremiah Wright in that case.) Chris advised, 'Just don't say anything.' That certainly does explain The Nation's silence.
Barack Obama spewed a ton of lies last Monday about Iraq. And The Nation magazine ignored it, day after damn day?
For a critique of The Nation, don't miss this piece by Stephen Lendham. Meanwhile The Nation's Jeremy Scahill went on Democracy Now! Tuesday to . . . Rave like a lunatic?
Amy Goodman asks that he "respond" to Barry's lunatic Monday speech and watch Jerry Scahill go nuts rather quickly:
JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, first of all, what President Obama is doing is implementing the policy that was on the desk of George W. Bush when he left the White House. This is essentially the Petraeus-Bush Iraq plan. So, the idea that Obama is making good on a campaign pledge to end the war is sort of playing with words, because the reality is he just implemented what was current US policy when he came into the White House.
What I think is more important for people to understand is, when President Obama talks about how the war is going to be shifted over to the diplomats, that doesn't just mean that all of a sudden there’s going to be negotiations by pencil pushers. The fact is that Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, last month submitted a request to the Pentagon for an incredible beefing up of the State Department's own paramilitary force. And what the State Department is saying is, when you take out all these combat troops, we want to have a replacement for that capacity. So Clinton, who as a candidate for president said she would ban Blackwater and other mercenary firms, is now presiding over what is going to be a radical expansion of the use of these companies and private soldiers in Iraq. The US embassy is the size of eighty football fields; you know, it’s the size of Vatican City. The Vatican has embassies around the world. Our embassy is the size of the Vatican, in Iraq.
AMY GOODMAN: Is it the largest US embassy in the world?
JEREMY SCAHILL: It's the largest embassy of any country in the history of civilization. I mean, it's a city unto itself. And it necessitates, Hillary Clinton believes, between 6,000 and 7,000 private security operatives. Just to put this in perspective, there are 4,000 special forces operators deployed in seventy-five countries around the world. That is the US special forces deployment under Obama. Hillary Clinton wants 7,000 of these guys just in Baghdad alone to protect the US embassy.
The fact is, Jerry, last month? No, Jerry, you reported that last month. And when you reported it last month you correctly noted that the April letter was not from Hillary Clinton, it was from Patrick Kennedy.
But you went crazy on air. You hissed and snarled about Hillary and forgot to include Barack in those snarls, didn't you?
Hillary's not president. (She's also not over Iraq. It was pulled from the State Dept before she was ever appointed Secretary of the State Dept.) Jeremy Scahill was happy to trash her for saying, if she became president, she'd outlaw contractors. But Hillary didn't become president. That's in part due to the fact that when she said she'd do away with contractors, she was then trashed for saying that by . . . Jerry Scahill.
Hillary can't win with Jerry. He's like two other used up, empty sacks: Robert Scheer and Marc Cooper. And like those two crazies, he's got nothing to offer but hatred. (Scheer and Cooper thought the height of journalism last week would be to trash a young woman's wedding. It was the height of stupidity and for all their whining about 'gluttony,' please note, they've yet to take on Michelle Obama's trip to Spain.)
Barack Obama is the President of the United States. He is implementing the policies that Samantha Power and the Carr Center dreamed up; however, he's making the choice to do so and that puts it on him. It doesn't even put the blame on Samatha Power. Dreadful though she is, she is not president. He is.
But Jerry Scahill's all about attacking women. Mommy must have pulled the nipple out of his mouth too soon because he's got a real grudge against women. And he especially fears any strong woman. Awhile back he was trash-talking Amy Goodman but his career hasn't turned out so well so it was not at all surprising to see him back on her show last week.
A lot of people used 2007 and 2008 to work on their hatred of women. That included some women. Sharon Smith was awfully clear that she thought Hillary was trying to act like a man. That was 2007. Now that her loverboy Barack isn't all she thought him to be, where is Sharon? Like everyone else at Socialist Worker, she's silent about Barack's Iraq War speech.
Sharon Smith was far from the only woman whoring it for Barack while attacking Hillary. For example, it takes a real whore to write: "Is Hillary's heaven for whites only?" It not only insults Hillary, it insults the faith she grew up in. Possibly if she had a foul mouthed preacher spewing hatred and homophobia publicly as late as 2008, Missy Comley Beattie could've gotten on board with Hillary's faith instead of attacking it and likening it to racism? We honestly wonder if Missy Comley Beattie ever looks back on all those columns attacking Hillary and wonders "What if?"
President Hillary Clinton would mean a still active peace movement, one that would have forgone e-'ativisim' for street actions. Instead we've got the Cult of St. Barack which has now replaced the peace movement. In "The Politics of Exploitation," the one time Barry O cheerleader offered one of the two most insightful written criticisms of Barack's pretty lies that appeared last week. And while it's true that she had little competition from others in the ranks of 'independent' media, it probably would have stood for something even if there'd been a crowded filed of analysts. (The other? Click here for Cindy Sheehan's analysis.)
If you gave up waiting for 'independent' media to cover the speech and the realities, you could find it elsewhere. For instance, Monday evening on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.
Chip Reid: When he came into office, there were 144,000 US troops in Iraq. Today there are 81,000 and, by the end of this month, there will be 50,000. Officially, they'll be designated as non-combat forces but that may be misleading because the troops will still be in harm's way and continue to support Iraqi combat forces. They also can engage in 'targeted counterrorism operations.'
Or Monday on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.
Richard Engel: Many people here don't share the same kind of optimism that was expressed not only by the President but also by analysts across the United States today. Life in Baghdad right now is very difficult. This is not what you could consider a normal or stable city. Just coming in from the airport this morning and driving to our bureau -- it's about a twelve mile journey along a short stretch of road -- we had to pass through six different checkpoints, there is a curfew in place tonight as there is every single night. And that gives you an idea of how much stability there is here -- not very much at all. Also, Iraqis only have about three hours of power every single day. They had 24 hours of power here in Baghdad under Saddam Hussein. While the United States might want to 'close the door' and 'turn off the lights' on this conflict, many Iraqis are not even able to turn the lights on in their own homes. Many couldn't even watch the speech today because they didn't have power.
PBS' The NewsHour did such a s**t poor job of coverage, you'd think they were The Nation magazine (or that Gwen's worried her Barry Adoration book is destined only for landfills) but NPR did solid work. Kelly McEvers regularly filed reports last week from Iraq. PRI's The Takeaway spent the entire week exploring Iraq. Tuesday, Steve Inskeep (NPR's Morning Edition -- link has text and audio) spoke with the Commission on Wartime Contracting's Grant Green who explained that the shift just meant an increase in the number of "contractors who are doing military or quasi-military functions." And especially noteworthy was Melissa Block's interview with NPR's Tom Bowman on All Things Considered Tuesday, when Block asked about the SOFA and Bowman replied, "You know, many people I talk with say it's not realistic. That deadline is part of a deal signed two years ago by the U.S. and Iraq, and we may see that agreement renegotiated. That's because the Iraqis will still need these trainers, logistics help, maybe even security help at the end of 2011. So the sense is some number of soldiers will end up remaining, not to mention American contractors."
It was in all the above moments that the MSM demonstrated they were not crazy-eyed zealots but actual journalists. Meanwhile 'independent' media largely waited for the whistle to blow signaling the end of their work days in The Nut Factory.
The Nut Factory is where the show runner for The Gates toils. Which is why the show can't figure out what it is. Forget the attempts to pass the program off as a crime drama. We're talking about the teen fix that leaves everyone feeling icky. It's as though they can't figure out who they're going for demographically. If they think they're going after all (despite the ratings), they are sadly mistaken. The high school angst lacks the punch to reach most adult viewers and the marital antics will probably not grab any of the tween audience. Since the program airs in the last hour of prime time, it would be smart for it to stop attempting to be a Twilight rip-off and ditch the kids. Tonight for example, Sarah's adult pool party is so much more interesting than another round of does Andie really love Charlie or does she really love Brett?
Smart would be ABC and the producers grasping that programs focusing on teens need to air much earlier in the night. Smart would also be ABC standing by this show which, even in its weakest moments, has added a great deal to summer viewing and should be brought back. That's the real secret about The Gates. For all the macho posturing of Nick, the show really comes alive when it's all about Sarah, Claire, Dr. Peg, Devon and the other adult women.