The Con Man gets a searching email asking: "My question is, we the people of the USA voted in a majority of Democrats," a woman writes. "They were voted into office by citizens believing they could, and would stop Bush from his tyranny, and his invasions on ‘other’ countries. Read 'other' as Muslim. But alas, nothing, read that as NOTHING has been done! No expectations have been met. We are still entangled in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now Iran, there is still no health care changes. Need I go on?"
"The words I said to myself upon the ascension of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin were she’s too good to be true," writes Post blogger Michael Conniff. "Hockey mom. Moose-stew maker. Hunter-fisher. Jogger. Motther. Wife. Governor. Right to lifer. Quintessential conservative.
Did we mention Republican John McCain’s veep candidate has a 17-year-old daughter pregnant out of wedlock and a hubbie with a driving-under-the-influence conviction under his belt?... Let me get this straight, kemosabe.... The Gov’s response to rumors Bristol had the baby and she was covering up are that Bristol is pregnant now? Correct me if I’m wrong, but Bristol being four months pregnant now has diddly to do with whether Super Sarah had Trig to begin with."
"Great," says Post blogger Michael Conniff in comment #26, "now I have two people calling me a pompous ass. At the risk of sounding like a pompous ass, I must humbly say you're both wrong."
Posts filed under 'Con Games'
The Con Man responds:
The power to intervene in other nations overtly and surreptitiously has also been growing in this environment where the laws don't seem to apply. Under cover of "the war on terror," the Bush-Cheney Administration intervenes wherever they see fit. Before the Church Committe, the Allende assasination in Chile and attempted assasination of Castro were historical examples of the same impulse. You use the example of Iran, but did you know we were in effect supplying weapons through Egypt to Fatah to fight Hamas, even though Hamas was democratically elected?
These interventions in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere have unintended consequences that indicate we should keep out of these internal deliberations. Perhaps the best example is "Charlie Wilson's War." We armed the mujahideen to the teeth to fight the Russians, and in so doing we literally made an obscure character known as Osama bin Ladin into a hero in the Muslim world, and set the stage for the rise of the Taliban.
Continue Reading September 5th, 2008
The words I said to myself upon the ascension of Alaskan Governor Sarah Pallin were she’s too good to be true.
Hockey mom. Moose-stew maker. Hunter-fisher. Jogger. Motther. Wife. Governor. Right to lifer. Quintessential conservative.
Did we mention Republican John McCain’s veep candidate has a 17-year-old daughter pregnant out of wedlock and a hubbie with a driving-under-the-influence conviction under his belt?
Continue Reading September 2nd, 2008
With the fighting in Georgia, the Con Man makes the intellectual journey from the Cold War to what he calls the Carbon Wars beginning with Gulf War I. Also: A visit from Charlie Firestone, head of the Aspen Institute's Communications and Society program.
Click here for the complete Con Games with Michael Conniff July 14, 2008.
August 20th, 2008
A question for today’s class: in the history of television advertising, has any private citizen ever ponyed up $50 million-plus for the greater good of the American people, with no strings attached?
The answer, of course, is no—not ever—maybe because it’s just not the American way. There’s always an angle to be had, most especially when we’re talking about oil.
This just in: as the chief bottle-washer at both a radio talk show and blog called “Con Games,” I consider it my particular duty in our unprecedented republic to keep a close eye out for the con, especially when it arrives right here in my adopted hometown of Aspen, where I keep my first, second, and third homes.
Thus T, Boone Pickens, the billionaire oil man who has now turned his attention to the Pickens Plan (pickensplan.com), an energy revamp that will accelerate our wing-flapping when it comes to wind—ramping it up to 20 percent or so starting with Sweetwater, Texas, and then points north—and cleverly deploying the freed-up capacity to replace imported oil with natural gas in the transportation sector. The goal, as he said in Aspen last week: to fix “our $700 billion problem”—the $700 billion in imported oil that we need per annum to keep the economy pumping like, well, like an oil well in Texas. The Pickens Plan includes spending $58 million of his own T. Boone coin on advertising to get the point across.
Continue Reading August 18th, 2008
Well, my friends, if John McCain calls his audience “my friends” one more time I will never say the words “missing in action” again. If he refers to “my fellow Americans” again I will force-feed the Republican nominee with quotations from Chairman LBJ about marital fidelity.
The Straight Talker his ownself made his way to the rock-ribbed Republican Rocky Mountains Thursday for a late-summer idyll, stopping to shake the money tree in Vail and then again in Aspen, going home on the Straight Talk Express with something like $500,000 minimum—not so bad for half-a-day’s work and no ad hominem attacks. In between, under the gentle aegis of the Aspen Institute, he did what pols do when they come to the place where power speaks to power: they sit back like movie stars accepting lifetime achievement interviews on AMC, albeit without the kettle corn and film clips.
The moneyed interests hereabouts in Aspen and thereabouts in Vail long ago made their peace with the erstwhile maverick, deciding they could live with him and his melanoma in the face of Obama Nation. And why not? There was much to like about McCain in person on the stump—he was a war hero, my fellow Americans—including his Surging references to integrity, his faux-more-years liberalism, and his cornball jokes about turning his nose up on ethanol in Iowa.
Continue Reading August 14th, 2008
Nope—not me, no way, no how was I going to leap to my feet in the Benedict Music Tent here in Aspen for any one of the multiple standing O’s which the putatively liberal crowd was giving away to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice: one for yakking with Aspen Institute president Walter Isaacson, the other for playing Brahms and Dvorak on the Steinway with four worthies from the Aspen Music Festival and School.
I know, I know: either I should have stood for something or I should have stood in bed.
Continue Reading August 3rd, 2008
The Con Man covers the waterfront with visits from the photographer behind "Dogs I've Nosed," the Broadway Babes starring in Theatre Aspen's black comedy "Crimes of the Heart," and Jim McWilliams, the Texas State University history professor who wrote "American Pests" covering the ground from colonial times to DDT.
Click here for Thursday's "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday July 31, 2008.
August 1st, 2008
The Con Man covers the waterfront with visits from the photographer behind "Dogs I've Nosed," the Broadway Babes starring in Theatre Aspen's black comedy "Crimes of the Heart," and Jim McWilliams, the Texas State University history professor who wrote "American Pests" covering the ground from colonial times to DDT.
Click here for Thursday's "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday July 31, 2008.
August 1st, 2008
The Con Man talks about his meeting with "The Dark Knight" at the multiplex, and his flap with Uma Thurman's father, Professor Robert Thurman of Columbia, about the violence in Quentin Tarantino's movies. Also: handicapping McCain-Obama.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Monday July 28, 2008.
July 28th, 2008
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