February 16, 2004
TRIPLE SCANDAL TREAT
All the news you need on John Kerry’s girlfriend, George W. Bush’s National Guard service ... and from Canada, the very latest on Triumph, “le chien comique de l'insulte”! First up, the Daily Telegraph reports:
Alex Polier, the twenty-four year old journalist who could end Senator John Kerry's hopes of becoming the next president of the United States is alleged to have had a two-year affair with the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Last night the rumours were in danger of becoming a full-blown scandal.
"This is not going to go away," one American friend of Miss Polier said yesterday. "What actually happened is much nastier than is being reported."
That wouldn’t be difficult, seeing that so far not much has been reported at all. Oh, my; things aren’t looking good for George W. Bush, who’ll struggle to avoid impeachment after these outrageous revelations in the LA Times:
He drove a convertible sports car and braved the bachelor life in cramped, often disheveled rooms in one of Houston's tonier singles' apartment complexes. He also drank.
One effect of the latest Bush-AWOL investigations is that a lot more people are now aware that Bush once flew jet fighters, which wasn’t as widely known as you might think. But who cares about the US elections when Canadians are being taunted by a puppet:
The incident raised the ire of Quebec nationalist group Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste, which demanded an apology from the politicians who brought Late Night With Conan O'Brien to Toronto.
In Ottawa, Mauril Belanger - the deputy government house leader - told the House of Commons that the government finds nothing amusing about the NBC show host making fun of Quebecers.
NDP MP Alexa McDonough said the sketch featuring Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was "vile and vicious" and amounted to hate-mongering and that the feds should demand their money back.
Comments Damian Penny: “Terrorists murder 3,000 people on 9/11, and the New Democrats ask for calm and say we have to understand the 'root causes'. But a puppet insulting Quebeckers? Unleash the dogs of war!” The Globe and Mail reports that protesters turned up at a subsequent Conan taping, chanting “Freedom fries, racist jibes” in a breakthrough non-rhyming denunciation of the US and its imperialist dog puppets.
Reuters, the plastic dogs of the news business, covered events in their usual style:
Canada's government on Friday condemned a show by U.S. late-night television host Conan O'Brien that insulted people in French-speaking Quebec and seemed to suggest everyone in the province was homosexual.
Reuters doesn’t do humour. The Toronto Star’s Vinay Menon seemed to get things right: “I can't believe this country was successfully baited by a damn hand puppet,” he wrote. “This just in: Triumph isn't real.”
Posted by Tim Blair at February 16, 2004 12:01 AMI can't wait until Triumph's next appearance. Robert Smigel lives for this kind of poop.
Posted by: Jim Treacher at February 16, 2004 at 01:40 AMThere is a slice of Triumph here..(click on related videos...)
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1076690266928_72099466///?hub=Canada#
J
Posted by: Juanito at February 16, 2004 at 01:49 AMThe people who live in Quebec aren't all homosexual. They are, however, all gay.
Posted by: ushie at February 16, 2004 at 02:21 AMThe Kerry "scandal" is, predictably, being ignored by most of the US media. I can imagine what it would be like had W been caught with his pants down.
But Kerry is a democrat. He gets a free pass.
What?! A fighter pilot drove a sports car and drank!? Next they'll say he lad girlfriends, too.
Posted by: Robert Crawford at February 16, 2004 at 02:27 AMMr. Crawford;
Did you mean "had" or "laid"? Or, in what would be a real scandal, "his lad 'girl'friends"?
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at February 16, 2004 at 02:38 AMThe funniest part of the Conan O'Brien deal is that the stupid-ass Canadian government gave his show $1,000,000(Canadian) to come and tape his show in Toronto. (That's $760,000 in real money.)
Posted by: David Crawford at February 16, 2004 at 02:59 AMIt's like "love", there aren't many words that rhyme with "jibes". Vibes, scribes, tribes, bribes... that's all I can think of. I can only assume they really wanted to use "racist jibes" if they overlooked rhyming "fries" with, say "lies". Either that or they're starting to get into free verse, a scary thought.
Posted by: dorkafork at February 16, 2004 at 03:05 AM"An end to racist jibes, negative anti-frog vibes, we want back our government bribes..."
Quebec: It's all gonna have to go. (TM)
Posted by: Aaron at February 16, 2004 at 03:37 AM"But who cares about the US elections when Canadians are being taunted by a puppet:"
Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-a!
Posted by: Ernie G at February 16, 2004 at 05:58 AMErnie raises an interesting question with his Monty Python reference: Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, actually does "speak" with an ersatz French accent, ala the French knights in the Python film.
Triumph's catch phrase,"...for ME TO POOP ON!" is always given in that pseudo-accent therefore isn't Triumph supposed to be French?
Conversely of course, I'm not sure the concept of "triomphe" still exists in France...
Posted by: JDB at February 16, 2004 at 07:18 AMWhen did the people of Quebec become a "race?" Looks like "race" has followed "fascist" to achieve the status of leftist code word for something to be deplored, and thus a word deprived of all actual meaning.
Posted by: Michael Lonie at February 16, 2004 at 09:15 AMLet's face it, French-Canadians could probably be insulted and cowed by Lamb Chop; they 'ow you say, "sit down to piss."
Posted by: Habib at February 16, 2004 at 10:25 AMActually it's the German's who sit down to piss. I don't know what that is about.
Posted by: aaron at February 16, 2004 at 02:21 PMReuters doesn’t do humour.
Sure they do. They just don't mean to.
Posted by: R C Dean at February 16, 2004 at 10:35 PMCanadian politicians can call President Bush a moron and that's okay, but to call Canadians who speak French "obnoxious and dull" is an insult? I will respect Canada more when the original Second City Television comes out on DVD.
BC
In regards to Triumph's French accent I'll refer you back to the Toronto Star’s Vinay Menon “This just in: Triumph isn't real.”
On instapundit Kerry's pre Vietnam war experience anti war views are highlighted.
Why would an anti war activist from a millionair blue blood family go to Vietnam?
Dovetails right in with his being set in charge of a swift boat where he would be in a position to concoct a chest full of medals for doing practically nothing.
And also his early withdrawl from theater (he left two months before his tour was up) and mad rush to start telling about all the "atrocities" he witnessed while motoring in a boat on the Mekong river or sitting on a tender in the south China sea.
The irony is that this is the same press that insisted we "ignore" Clinton's slippery tactics of getting out of being drafted.
It is also the same press that ignored the heroism of the two men who ran against Clinton.
Bob Dole was almost killed trying to save another soldier in Italy, and to this day cannot use his right hand.
George HWBush was one of the youngest fighter pilots in WWII; his plane crashed, and he was rescued by a submarine...(interestingly enough, this reminds me of Mitchner's story "the Milk Run" in Tales of the South Pacific).
Most Americans don't know either story.
And all the ridicule of Bush landing on that aircraft carrier didn't lead to people noticing he was once a pilot either.
Indeed, now the "spin" is why he didn't fly after transferring to Alabama (the reasons can be found on many military blogs: not enough planes for one)...but this only shows the American press is tone deaf in military matters.
Heck, even though they talk of "NASCAR" dads, most of them never heard of Dale Earnhart before he died..and most of them will not see the implications of Bush flying into Daytona...
Posted by: Nancy Reyes at February 17, 2004 at 01:32 AMRe: Germans urinating while sitting.
Google a diagram of a German-style toilet. Instead of a nice, straightforward water-filled bowl, they have a flat shelf. Flushing jets water over that shelf to push waste down an opening in the back. If a man is urinating, he has to aim at the small target in the back and risk splattering, or else sit.
The reason for this setup? A long tradition of, well, inspecting feces.
Posted by: Eric the .5b at February 17, 2004 at 05:39 AM"Freedom Fries! Racist Jibes"
I though Quebecois were a terminally whiney linguistic minority, not a separate race.
furious
Posted by: furious at February 17, 2004 at 12:25 PM