February 25, 2004

SECRET COLUMN PREPARED BY THE PENTAGON

Mentioned in this week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin are Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilaly, Keysar Trad, Captain Cook, John Wylie, Tony Jones, Thomas Hickey, David Fickling, Cathy Freeman, Deborah Mailman, Albert Namatjira, Evonne Goolagong, Eddie Mabo, Lionel Rose, Mandawuy Yunupingu, Neville Bonner, Michael Long, Pat O'Shane, Nova Peris Kneebone, Aden Ridgeway, Polly Farmer, Sally Morgan, Charles Perkins, Anthony Mundine, Lowitja O'Donaghue, Kyle van der Kuyp, Jason Gillespie, Mark Latham, Saufatu Sopo'aga, Al Gore, Robert McClelland, and Philip Ruddock.

Also in the Bulletin, Patrick Cook analyses the US elections:

According to the Democrats, John Kerry was a natural jungle fighter. He was usually spotted along the Mekong, leaping ashore from his frail craft, clad only in a colourful bandanna and a loincloth, trailing belts of ammunition, firing two M50 machine guns from each athletic hip. Although repeatedly wounded, he carried his men to safety on his back, along with his boat. When his broad chest could no longer accommodate any more medals, he reluctantly limped home, there selflessly to alert Congress to the problems of the Vietnam War.

President George W. Bush, on the other hand, skulked in the safety of the Texas National Guard, until the day he slipped into women's clothing and deserted to Alabama, presumably in search of moonshine. Of his way with livestock in Alabama in 1972, the Democrats refuse to speculate. To describe the president as an alcoholic, transvestite hog-fancier would be to lower the tone of the election to that of their opponents. Also Bush never flew that plane onto the aircraft carrier, and he had several pairs of pantiehose stuffed down the crotch of that flight suit anyway.

Read on for Cook’s assessment of the Republican view.

Posted by Tim Blair at February 25, 2004 09:30 AM
Comments

Tim, I can't believe you recommended this column, riddled with errors!

1) An F-102 is not a Starfighter, that's the 104.

2) It's Grover Cleveland, not (for God's sake), Grosvenor.

3) "Kerry" is not a girl's name, unless you spell it wrong, but since Australians are known to come up with weird-ass names like "Kylie" and "Kirstie", I'll give him a pass on that.

Hmmm, you don't think he was kidding about the Starfighter, do you? That might've been satire.

Posted by: Angie Schultz at February 25, 2004 at 09:46 AM

I'll see your Kylie and raise you a Moesha, Shaniqua or D'Shawn ...

Weird-ass indeed.

Posted by: Australian Elvis at February 25, 2004 at 09:55 AM

Patrick Cook attempts to be funny and fails. 'Nuff said.

Posted by: Annalucia at February 25, 2004 at 09:58 AM

Get a life Annalucia. That entire article was belly-laugh out loud funny. At both sides of politics.

You have to be a lefty to have no sensayuma.

Posted by: Fool to Himself and Burden to Others at February 25, 2004 at 10:40 AM

He's much funnier than Tim.

Posted by: Jim at February 25, 2004 at 11:00 AM

``belly-laugh out loud funny''? Well, maybe if you're Australian. I just thought it was lame.

And watch who you're calling a lefty. I have two sons in the Marine Corps and I was reading National Review when I was 15. However I will grant that the moniker you give yourself is probably an accurate description.

Posted by: Annalucia at February 25, 2004 at 12:27 PM

"The Democrats have no real comeback to this except to point out that "Dick Cheney" has vague sexual bondage connotations and that President Bush's flaunting of the initial "W" is offensive to voters with speech defects."

I thought Dubya was making a special appeal to voters with speech defects, especially uncontrollable drawling?

Angie Schultz: "An F-102 is not a Starfighter, that's the 104."

The F-104 Starfighter thing was an easy mistake to make. I have often heard the F-104 referred to as a widowmaker. Its record in Germany supported that. Not everybody would know it was also called a Starfighter.

But the actual label of the F-102, the Delta Dagger, was better than the one Patrick Cook foisted on it. A Google search is not that hard.

And yeah, not getting Grover Cleveland's name right was bad too.

Jim, nobody's funnier than Tim. :) Certainly not Patrick Cook on this error-strewn showing.

Posted by: David Blue at February 25, 2004 at 12:51 PM

Hate to be a pedant (what happened to Pedant? and Pooh?) but while we're on errors it's 'back of Bourke'.

Posted by: ilibcc at February 25, 2004 at 01:24 PM

"President George W. Bush, on the other hand, skulked in the safety of the Texas National Guard, until the day he slipped into women's clothing and deserted to Alabama, presumably in search of moonshine. Of his way with livestock in Alabama in 1972, the Democrats refuse to speculate. To describe the president as an alcoholic, transvestite hog-fancier would be to lower the tone of the election to that of their opponents. Also Bush never flew that plane onto the aircraft carrier, and he had several pairs of pantiehose stuffed down the crotch of that flight suit anyway."

Fuck, it's worse than I thought.


Posted by: Stewart Kelly at February 25, 2004 at 01:32 PM

Oh the inhumanity of it all!

Patrick, wrong facts supplied
Lefties cried.

Posted by: nic at February 25, 2004 at 02:56 PM

I much preferred the F-106 Delta Dart. And the 104 was called the Widowmaker due to a tendency to roll hard to port on takeoff if you weren't careful. Basically a rocket with stubby wings, not enough for low-speed control.

Posted by: mojo at February 25, 2004 at 03:39 PM

I found Cook's article not only laugh-out-loud funny, but laugh-out-loud-very-hard-with-tears funny!

Just what I needed after a long day ...

Thanks.

Posted by: Chris Josephson at February 25, 2004 at 04:57 PM

Patrick Cook is the only satirist in Oz who makes me laugh out loud everytime. Why? Because he rips the piss out of everyone and everything and thinks that "ideology" is some freakazoid natural therapy remedy. Take note Guy Rundle, Rod Quantock, the cast of "The Glass House" and every other boring, derivative, "I think that Michael Moore is spot-on and that guy - is it, like, Noah Chumpsky? - is soooo cool," wanker who purports to be comedic.

You're good too Tim :)

Posted by: Geoff Honnor at February 25, 2004 at 06:01 PM

Agree completely with your opinion on Cook, Geoff. I finally got to meet him for the first time last year; that satire springs from a mind deeply interested in history and philosophy and whole reams of stuff I barely comprehend.

Posted by: tim at February 26, 2004 at 12:09 AM

Not everybody would know it was also called a Starfighter.

Pish tosh. That's what Lockheed called it. That's what it was called in the movie Starfighters (starring Bob Dornan!) (actually, it kept having a lot of problems there, too; no rolling though), and that's what it was called on the side of the box. I had one hanging in my room when I was a teenager.

Actually, I thought Cook's column was pretty funny, but he didn't really capture the Republican view of Kerry. He should have said they thought Kerry burned women, kids, houses, and villages, and then came home and was outraged that no one had told him that burning women, kids, houses, and villages was wrong, even in war, and besides other guys did a lot worse.

Also, when you are trying to present the Republican view of Bush, the words "tequila bottles rattling around the cockpit" should be omitted. Save that for the Democrats' view.

Did Bush really land the plane on the carrier? I didn't think he, personally, had. Sounds reckless to me.

Posted by: Angie Schultz at February 26, 2004 at 12:38 AM

Angie, no Pres Bush didn't land on the carrier. Only Navy pilots are trained to land on carriers and Bush was in the Air Natl Guard - an arm of the AirForce. But he did fly the plane - probably for a good long time.

Posted by: rabidfox at February 26, 2004 at 01:03 AM