A little while ago, I received an e-mail from Keith at Sortapundit, who wanted me to sign his petition calling on Oliver Willis to resign. This was in response to Willis’ demand that Brit Hume resign from Fox News after he… um… I dunno. It seemed to involve FDR, social security, and I think some albino muskrats were involved somewhere. I declined, quoting my mother once saying “everyone in life has a purpose, even if it’s to be a bad example.”
Once I saw Keith’s actual work, though, I regretted blowing him off. It was actually kind of fun. I thought about it some more, and decided to start a new contest — a “Brit Hume Resignation Watch Watch.” I’d start a betting pool on how long Cousin Oliver (he reminds me, among others, of that annoying little twit from the Brady Bunch) would keep up this pathetic little crusade.
But I procrastinated too long. After 33 days, Oliver quietly took down the campaign. In eerie similarity to the rewriting of Soviet history and the removal of key figures in Communist history, the call has been quietly “disappeared” and no mention of it remains on his main page.
I’m not going to let this just slide away, though. I wanted to mock and deride Cousin Oliver, and by God, I will NOT be denied.
His latest crusade seems to be Tom Delay. Delay, it seems, must resign immediately, for the unpardonable sin of… um… I dunno, maybe he wore white after Labor Day or put his elbows on the table at a state dinner. I’m not too worried about Mr. Delay’s future, though; a ringing condemnation from Cousin Oliver seems to be good for people’s job security.
But here’s my idea: a betting pool on who next will feel the wrath of Cousin Oliver. Who will be the next to face the horror, the terror, that is Cousin Oliver’s demand for a resignation?
1) Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California
2) Antonin Scalia, outspoken Supreme Court justice
3) John Bolton, Ambassador to the United Nations nominee
4) Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts
5) Bill Frist, Majority Leader of the Senate
6) Glenn Reynolds, Blogfather and law professor
7) Other (fill in your own best guess)
This isn’t a formal contest. There will be no votes counted, no awards for the most creative nominee or rationalization, and (most likely) no followups posted.
In fact, the only clear winner I can see from this is whoever Cousin Oliver next decides to target for his “demands” for their resignation. With his track record for success, that move will pretty much locks up their job security.
J.
Update: (sigh) link corrected. My apologies, Keith. I am SUCH a twit sometimes.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind seeing Bill Frist replaced as Senate majority leader by someone more feisty and more supportive of Pres. Bush’s goals.
Given the job security of his targets, I want him to demand that I resign for blogging at work! (Hey, the IT job market is rough down here…)
You guys give him way more attention than he deserves.
This is too easy. I have a lefty friend who has made the following predictions:
1. Rush Limbaugh would lose his job after the pill scandal. (His ratings went up.)
2. Dean would get the Democratic nomination. (Kerry did.)
3. Kerry would win. (Bush did.)
4. Bush would end up winning Ohio by only 30,000 votes once the recount was complete. (He won by 119,000)
5. The election in Iraq would be a disaster. (58% turnout.)
Given my friend’s track record, I plan to make big money betting on the opposite of whatever he says. Shall a ask him for his prediction?
Go for it, DL. Just be wary of the Broken Clock phenomenon, and the whole Heisenberg twist — by depending on your friend being wrong, it just might screw up things enough to make him right.
J.
heh- Jay I got a chuckle out of this one….
“In eerie similarity to the rewriting of Soviet history and the removal of key figures in Communist history, the call has been quietly “disappeared” and no mention of it remains on his main page.”
It came to my mind while reading your MAC address post below.
Yeah, like all the DOS idiots who used to look down their noses and say, dripping with distain, “I don’t need all those little pictures and a mouse, I use a real computer.”
Then when Windows 3.1 came out they all flew down to the store to buy it and a serial mouse then, like the communists, never mentioned their previous statements. It was as if they never said it.
I’ve lived thru that 100 times as a Mac guy** but I’ve never had the proper analogy.
P
** “Who would possibly want a CD in their computer, you can’t write to it and if I want music, I’ll play my 8 track. That idea will never catch on.”
Geez, Paul, I gave you your own PC-Mac thread to play with. Can’t you keep it there? This one is for mocking Oliver, not computers!
J.
Hee hee, it seems Oliver is so irrelevant, no one can stay on the subject.
His latest crusade seems to be Tom Delay. Delay, it seems, must resign immediately, for the unpardonable sin of… um… I dunno, maybe he wore white after Labor Day or put his elbows on the table at a state dinner.
Jay, I assume you’re just being a partisan hack, and you’re simply pretending not to know about Rep. DeLay’s massive and well-documented history of financial and political corruption.
But just in case you really are that grossly mis-informed—you do rely on the conservatively-biased corporate media, after all, so anything is possible—you should check this shit out:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=129
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/delay.ethics/
http://campaignmoney.org/delay/
Btw, have you heard of the coup in Syria rumors?
Link.
Jay, I got beaten by 2 minutes. But read my link first, it’s much more relevant, hee hee!
I assume you’re just being a partisan hack
And I assume you’re just getting a sick thrill out of seeing your name on Wizbang.
Wait… those are all white males.
RACIST!
Speaking of disappearing …
I visit Oliver’s page for kicks and giggles every few days, and when I visited it at the beginning of the week I seem to remember that he had a post regarding the NYT story about Saddam’s WMD depots being looted.
Then the right wing blogs began pummeling the NYT for inadvertently admitting, through the story, that Saddam must have had WMD in order for someone to have looted the depots.
I looked at Oliver’s page yesterday and I couldn’t find any evidence of the post …
(cue “Twilight Zone theme)
Can anyone confirm that he “airbrushed” the post?
And I assume you’re just getting a sick thrill out of seeing your name on Wizbang.
At least I have the courage to sign my real name—an attribute we do not share, Monty.
ummm.. you CAN wear white after labor day. It’s called winter white. Jay, your color deprived, aren’t you?…;-)
7. Anyone in the blogosphere who has the temerity to disagree with Mr. Willis.
After 33 days, Oliver quietly took down the campaign. In eerie similarity to the rewriting of Soviet history and the removal of key figures in Communist history, the call has been quietly “disappeared” and no mention of it remains on his main page.
Oh, that’s just typical Oliver. I had posted a comment on a thread where he claimed that Glenn said that Democrats hate America. It was a dumb statement with no basis in fact. I called him on it. He tries to defend it using logic a two year old would laugh at. Point out the ridiculousness of his new argument and the next thing you know my comment went down the old memory hole only to be replaced by one of his own addressing the points raised. His excuse for deletions? I wasn’t nice, which is funny because in the same thread he was calling people idiots, tools, morons, etc.
That seems to be old Oliver’s MO: Post crap without thinking, get called on it, torture logic to try to defend it, if that fails just delete the evidence. Useful idiot indeed.
So… who *is* this Oliver Willis guy you fellas keep talking about? Is he the Wonkette? Or am I getting my W’s confused?
Harvey, he is a left wing wacko blogger (paid even) that SOME like Wizbang and Protein Wisdom love to drive themselves insane by reading him.
There is reading the opinions of the other side and then there is (as when reading Oliver)….the torture of reading those not associated with reality.
I have no idea why they bother. He probably loves the attention.
Uh, RWS, I’m shocked that someone who gets “the “Jeffs” humor didn’t pick up Harvey’s joke.
BTW, Harvey, “I” still think you’re funny (dispite what some people say at IMAO)
Damn. I get my first Wizbanging and I’m too busy trudging around the British wintery streets to enjoy it. Bah, humbug.
Lilek is noting today that Mr. Willis used the term Filthy to describe Mr. Wolfowitz, and pondered why that particular word? hmmmm……..
JFH, oh, didn’t know it was THAT harvey.
I only get Jeff’s humor half the time. The other half is spent looking up sexual terms in the dictionary that I have never heard of….;-)
Hey, Jay Tea – that link goes to the wrong site. The petition is here
I just checked my stat tracker and thought hey, a Wizbanging don’t get you too many hits these days. The guy who writes You Know I’m Right must be over the moon, though.
Donny boy, I wrote that comment. I used the other name because you have yet to give me reason to take you seriously. If you had hovered your cursor over the sig you would have seen my weblog URL and could have figured out who I am.
Dip.
At least I have the courage to sign my real name
And how is that verifiable?
Suggesting more than a few issues related to this:
I’m curious as to the actual (as in, “real,” “substantiated,” “researched” and “researchable“) site stats related to Willis’ site because I know I’ve never read his site, other than to find myself staring at an offputting place a few times when I’ve accessed a few links here from Wizbang. (Same applies to other self-assessed ‘popular’ blogsites but that issue isn’t part of my comments here, those/any other sites and their actual stats, just as to Willis’.)
Just saying, what’s the issue with Willis other than he’s a paid offender with words? I mean, read MAD MAGAZINE, watch (even) MAD TV and at least be able to laugh a bit while doing so if that sort of irreverancy is appealing, but I’m just curious what the appeal about Willis’ place is and that it is, in fact, actually (as in, “really,” etc.) popular.
Because, the only place I ever read Willis’ site and Willis himself mentioned is here, Wizbang. Which I think enjoys some special strata among the blogosphere as to writing about the failings of others (keeps many of us returning, among other things, so no complaints here), but I do know when/if I’ve shared insights about the downside of glory where some others are concerned, I get nasty emails from those sites and their authors and some of them are (even) supposed “conservatives,” so I don’t think this area of discussion/comment is entirely politically based.
I think Wizbang needs a new category: The Downside.
But… but… Stacy London says it’s OK to wear white after Labor Day! Who are you going to believe, some pajama-clad blogger, or Stacy London?
I think the rule is you can’t wear white SHOES after Labour Day, but I don’t know if this applies to places like Florida or Hawaii, there must be a known dividing line for fashionistas
OOH I JUST HAD A HORRID FLASHBACK, WHITE SHOES WITH BLACK PANTYHOSE, I’LL BE OK IN A SECOND……
Oh and if Mr. Delay has been a bad boy, he should be investigated with due process and punished if guilty, unlike say, Marc Rich…