When Spinsanity Becomes Comedy

By:  Rachel Marsden

You know the scorching heat blanketing the United States must really be affecting those blue state folks when their anti-Bush, leftist spin becomes indistinguishable from a Saturday Night Live parody.

Here’s a general rule:  If people can’t tell the difference between your ideological rhetoric and a stand-up comedy act, then chances are that you’re better off keeping your mouth shut.

Last week, Los Angeles Times columnist, Jonathan Chait, wrote a column that actually had me searching his archives, trying to determine whether he perhaps fancied himself a satirist or some sort of comedian.  That seems to be the backdoor escape for liberal ideologues (Al Franken comes to mind) when they try to be serious political commentators, but inadvertently end up saying things that make most reasonable people question their sanity.

In his column, “The (over)exercise of power”, Chait argues that “Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy,” and marvels that “given the importance of his job, it is astonishing how much time Bush has to exercise.”

While Chait was ranting about how freaked out he gets by the President’s workout regimen, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has been talking up the idea of seven time Tour de France champion, Lance Armstrong, going into politics.  If Bush scares him, then Armstrong’s superhuman anaerobic capacity and six-hour workouts would no doubt send Chait over the edge.

Chait continues:  “It's nice for Bush that he can take an hour or two out of every day to run, bike or pump iron. Unfortunately, most of us have more demanding jobs than he does.”

The columnist is seemingly unable to grasp the concept that people can actually trade that hour wasted in front of the TV, or at the bar after work, or spent chatting up the honey in the adjacent cubicle, for a little exercise time.

I suppose Chait longs for the good ol’ days of Bill Clinton, whose morning jogs consisted of making a round-trip to either mistress Gennifer Flowers’ place or the local McDonalds.  Apparently there’s nothing noteworthy about that, but Bush’s health-consciousness makes him a first-class weirdo.

Not to be outdone in the spinsanity department, actress “Hanoi” Jane Fonda suddenly reemerged from her thirty year hiatus from actively discrediting the brave soldiers who fight for her right to mouth off like a treasonous twit to announce her new efforts against troops fighting in Iraq.

This week’s Associated Press report announcing Fonda’s March 2006 tour that will see her travel the country with “families of Iraq war veterans” on a “bus that runs on vegetable oil”, reads like something straight out of the Weekly World News tabloid.  The only thing missing is a statement that the bus will be driven by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA).  (We can dream, can’t we?)

The same woman who, during the Vietnam War, parachuted into enemy territory to pose for pictures with the Viet Cong forces as they were killing American troops, now apparently figures “war veterans that she has met on a nationwide book tour have encouraged her to break her silence on the Iraq war” and support her in her efforts to bring the troops home, ASAP.

If soldiers actually wanted Fonda to “break” anything, “her silence” would likely be dead-last on their agenda.  Fonda’s war veteran fan club must exist on the same planet as all these vegetable oil refueling stations capable of supporting a cross-country tour.

And finally, we have the over-the-top efforts by Democrats over the past few days to discredit Bush Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, by referencing his ties to the Federalist Society.

So why exactly would belonging to the Federalist Society present a problem?  According to the Washington Post:  “[T]he society's alignment with conservative GOP politics and public policy makes Roberts' relationship with the organization a potentially sensitive point for his confirmation process because many Democrats regard the organization with suspicion.”

Beyond pointing out that the group—like many things in life—causes some on the left to reach for their tin-foil hats, there’s really nothing to suggest that there’s anything wrong with the group itself.

In fact, the Federalist Society is so secretive and shady that it has a public website outlining its mandate:  to essentially provide a counterbalance to the liberal ideology spewed forth at law schools across America.  Furthermore, “[it] is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

Yeah—real dodgy stuff, alright.

Again, the left would have been better off saving its alarmist attacks for something that has a chance of ringing true, rather than playing the “right wing conspiracy” card yet again—particularly in a case where even Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is backing the GOP.

Because when one of the most liberal senators in America isn’t on the same page as you, then that leaves you way out in loony-left field with Jane Fonda and her Crisco bus, and the guy who finds cross-training disturbing.