O'Reilly, with Hearst, Welch , Beck and Schock

SCATTERINGS:


The pushback by Fox News on Bill O'Reilly's gilded  memoirs that claimed (finally!) he witnessed the war zone from photographs recalls an earlier day when  war was the big story  in the newspapers.    It was the time of the Cuban revolt in the late 1890s when William Randolph Hearst was in the thick of a circulation battle with Joseph Pulitizer. Hearst, forever the show-biz publisher, sent Frederic Remington, a renowned artist,  to Cuba to decorate the articles in the Hearst  papers. His memorable instruction to Remington:

"You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

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As President Obama's policies are forever bashed by a vengeful Republican congress, you have to wonder whether the  day will ever arrive when a gentle Boston lawyer like Joseph Welch at the Army-McCarthy hearings will  go at the villainous Sen. Cruz et al  with a plaintive plea, coaxing:

"Senator, have you no sense of decency?"

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Glenn Beck wants America to know that he's abandoned the Republican Party. Right out the door!  Not  a dime more will he contribute to the GOP.    Believes Republicans are too soft on Obama.  "They are not good,": he pontificates.   But isn't he a bit presumptuous to think that most Americans give a damn about what he is?  So, Glenn, we can only add:  "Don't let the door slam you in the ass."

And while Beck's  out, Donald Trump says he's  in .  As a presidential candidate with an exploratory committee.  Is his business that dull that he needs more excitement  as one of America's elite egotists?  Maybe.  After all , here's what he says about a candidacy:

"I am the only one who can make America truly great again."

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Not a good week for rising Republican stars, past and present.  If you saw my earlier piece on rising stars, those bright gaseous objects in the heavens, you'll know that I have an amateur astronomer's interest in rising political stars that never made it.  Here are the latest to add to the list:

Aaron Schock,  the young Illinois Republican congressman who resigned after POLITICO   outed his extravagances in mileage reimbursements as well as furnishing his office in the Rayburn House Office Buiilding (including a bust of Abraham Lincoln and  pheasant feathers )  to create the ambiance  of Downton Abbey. Said POLITICO:

"Schock's resignation marks a swift downfall of  one of the GOP's most promising young stars and prolific fundraisers." Back to earth at age 33.

And then came word of  a return to prison of former Republican Gov. John G. Rowland of Connecticut on corruption charges. The New York Times reported that the 57-year-old ex-governor was first "elected to office at age 23 and was soon hailed as one of the Republican Party's brightest stars."

No soft landing for either of these guys.

(For some reason, Democrats don't produce as many  rising young stars.  The one who comes most readily to mind is a former Illinois senator who, as he will tell you, "won both of them". ) 
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Fringe discourse: Bring on the Armpit Committee!

We are bulling ahead in of our crusade to  create a '"House UnAmerican Armpit Committee" - HUAC for our older readers. It will be an overdue inquiry into the lunacy whose unpleasant odor is affecting everything we hold dear to civilized behavior.  In recent days alone there have been numerous occasions to subpoena the most toxic voices among us with the plaintive question once raised by  Atty. Joseph Welch, to Sen. Joe McCarthy:  "Have you no sense of decency?"


Could we not begin by summoning Rep. Allen West, Florida Republican, to explain his math that there are 80 communists in Congress?

And Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota  Republican who was reprimanded by Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, for accusing Huma Abedin, a deputy chief of staff in the State Department, of being a secret operative of the Muslim Brotherhood sneakily influencing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was a towering moment for McCain, and could demand that Bachmann  appear before HUAC to inquire about her declining mental state  these days.

And Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who assembled a few "investigators"  to review President Obama's birth certificate and now declares with forensic neglect that it is a "forgery".  Arpaio must  be asked by HUAC when did his nuttiness began emitting such foul odors that he is now the leader in the toxic armpit  birther gang.

Romney campaign soldier John Sununu accused the President  of being unlearned in the art of being an American.  (He later Etch-A-Sketched his comment but HUAC could ask him to say why  he is such a boorish dumbbell.)

The Committee could summon Rush Limbaugh, but it would be a still greater diversion if we waited until the circus comes to town.

The Wingies are spinning the earthquake

The latest word from Planet Loco:

Glenn Beck says the Japanese catastrophe could be a precursor (my word, obviously not his) to the end of the world.

Bill O'Reilly says the media are guilty of "hyping" the seriousness of radioactive fallout.

Rush Limbaugh used the tragic occasion to to joke about environmentalists.

As Joseph Welch plaintively asked during the McCarthy hearings: "At long last, have you no sense of decency?"

Not then. Not now.