Popular Culture 20110225: Van Susteren to the Rescue!

It is not often that I have such a ripe opportunity to combine TeeVee, politics, the FOX “News” Network, the horribly biased Governor of Wisconsin, and my own parody songwriting skills into a post.  As a matter of fact, it has never happened before.  Please allow me to explain.

I usually do not do purely political pieces here, there, or anywhere, because so many other are much more talented than I am at it.  But I do keep an eye out for popular culture, and this opportunity just hit me in the face.  I do not have to explain how Governor Scott Walker, a Tea Party wingnut, has probably disqualified himself for holding a position of trust, but I will!  

Walkers’s factors for disqualification for holding office:

First, he has a history of cheating.  At Marquette, he was accused of cheating by violating campaign regulations when he ran for president of the student government.  Interestingly, his platform was to get the university “back on budget”!

Also interestingly, he is a college dropout, just like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, and a plethora of other hard right folks.  Four years in college, 94 credits (usually around 120+ are required to be graduated) and he just, like Palin, quit.  By the way, assuming the semester system, that is fewer than 12 hours per semester, MAYBE three or four classes per semester.

Second, he has a history of opposing labor, and that goes back decades.  Now, I have my own issues about requiring people to pay union dues to get a job, but his enmity towards working folks goes much deeper.  This is a valid topic for discussion, but I am no enemy of organized labor.  I am just not sure that your should be mandated to pay for a union membership in order to get a job but this is for another piece.  Suffice it to say that I think that all workers should have the right to join a union if they wish, and that bargaining rights are sacrosanct.

Finally, not only does he seem to be coldhearted, he also seems to be sort of naive, if not stupid.  To take the punked telephone call earlier in the week was actually stupid, and on many levels.  First, it shows that he chose a poor staff to filter such attempts.  Everyone in office should realize that attempts at punking them will be a regular thing.  His staff, a reflection on him, obviously did not.  In addition, he talked to the purported David Koch like he was a vassal to him (and he actually is) to the real Koch Brothers rather than the elected chief executive of a state.

The well publicized telephone call just shows what he is:  a tool.

But this is supposed to be about popular culture.  Enter the FOX “News” Network and Greta Van Susteren.  Wednesday, FOX sent her to do damage control for the disastrous telephone call.  Very little coverage on FOX had been done, except just to mention it, but other outlets were having a field day with it.  So they sent her to play the apologist for him.  I watched it, and for around 20 minutes they tried to debunk his actual words.

Here is a link to the piece, with a transcript.  This is the FOX “News” brand of “journalism”:  protect the people that Ales and Murdoch like.  I hate to link to this site, but you really need to see those hardball questions, and even then Walker tried to weasel out, even though she was throwing him a lifeline, van Susteren to the rescue!

Thus is the mission of the FOX “News” network:  push extreme right wing ideas onto their listeners, regardless of the facts.  They tried hard, but the results were pretty comedic.  Today they hardly mentioned it at all, except to say that the caller who pretended to be David Koch might be in really bad legal trouble.  Good luck with that one, Megyn Kelly (what mum would spell her daughter’s name that way?  Bizarre!)

Anyway, I suspect that Walker may have a short shelf life in politics after this, because it is becoming obvious that he, like many Tea Party elected folks, was bought and paid for by the Koch Brothers.  Thus, my poor attempt at songwriting.  First, you have to see some background material.

Black Oak Arkansas was a band from, well, Arkansas around the mid 1970s.  Their debut album was pretty good, self named, but they quickly got what they call over at home “too big for their britches” and flamed out after not too long.  They were OK for a while, but in the grand order of things, quite forgettable.  But I do remember this song, and it was a perfect venue for my main comment.  It is Jim Dandy to the Rescue, and they only covered it.  I shall try to find an older version.  You have to hear it before I post my parody of it or it will not make sense.

I am sort of ashamed to be from the same state!

Here is a better one.  LaVern Baker.

Ok, now my contribution to the horrible end of good songwriting!  LOL!  Remember, the victim that Jim Dandy, well Greta, tries to save in each case is Governor Walker.

Van Susteren to the Rescue

van Susteren to the rescue, van Susteren to the rescue, van Susteren to the rescue, van Susteren to the rescue.

I was talking on the phone with a man who had thrown me a bone

Then I saw that he was gone, and that I was talking with a clone!

Come on van Susteren, come on!

My staff had been punked like a fool, and I was swimming in that pool!

I didn’t have no time to work it out, so I just continued to spout!

Come on van Susteren, come on!

I said all that he wanted to know, and he put on a real good show!

But it was all a lie, not from him but actually from I [since he never was graduated from college, grammatical mistakes are expected, besides, it rimes…editor’s note]

Come on van Susteren, come on!

I put my ideas there, not knowing where he to dare

to put all my words on the air!

Come on van Susteren, come on!

I wanted thugs in the street, to whack every fact that they might meet,

but I called it off when I thought that any report might reduce my support.

Come on van Susteren, come on!

Now she is sitting here with me, and I am an interviewee!

Greta don’t waste no time, she and FOX are so aligned!

van Susteren to the rescue, van Susteren to the rescue!

Now I’m looking like the man on the top, ’cause with lies FOX just don’t stop!

Truth is not abig deal for them, and I wanna thank them again!

van Susteren to the rescue, van Susteren to the rescue!

I know that the “song” was pitiful, but I found it amusing.  Please let me know what you think.  I do not do this very often, but sometimes it is just fun to make fun of others, especially when they are dishonest, evil, and cover for a very, very stupid man.  Please do not pull back any punches in the comments.

Sunday at 9:00 PM Eastern on Pique the Geek we shall discuss one of the most important medical discoveries, the vaccine against polio.  Salk and Sabin were the giants there, and of course their research groups contributed most of the work.  Only those of us over around 55 years old even remember the devastation the polio caused in, mostly, young people, but  mystery political character was also struck by it in adulthood  Those of you who are history buffs will already know, but please do not spoil it for younger folks.

I appreciate each and every comment and thought.  Please comment liberally and often.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Crossposted at Antemedius.com, FireflyDreaming.com, Dailykos.com, and Docudharma.com.