I’ve finally figured out what the Blago situation reminds me of. It’s the penultimate line of one of my favorite dirty jokes, the one about the shipwreck and the sheep. For those who don’t know that one, I’ll try to sum it up in family-blog language:
A ship wrecks on a desert island populated by nothing except a large flock of sheep. As the long months pass with no rescue in sight, the sailors begin to assuage their, um, tensions with the female sheep—all except the captain, who initially condemns the practice in the harshest language. However, eventually the pressure gets to him too, and after anxious consultation with the first mate as to procedure, he goes over the hill and visits a sheep. When he comes back, the crew is convulsed with laughter. “What?” he demands, embarrassed and angry. “Isn’t that what you’ve all been doing?” And the first mate replies, “Yes sir, but…you picked the ugliest one!”
“Isn’t that what you’ve all been doing?” When I read the famous bit about “I’ve got an effing valuable thing here, I’m not just going to give it away” I thought — well after I finished laughing I thought– well sure, it is certainly a valuable thing. Of course he isn’t going to just give it away. Who does that?
Here‘s a HuffPo post that sort of says the same thing. Poor Blago. The man lacks finesse. Well hell, you could tell that by looking at him.
What if political life were like a SNL skit, where all the finessing was translated into actual, unvarnished plain speech in subtitle form or something? I bet there would be a lot more “eff thems” and “eff yous” heard on the Senate floor than just when Dick Cheney spoke.
), I highly recommend that you see “Milk” if it’s in a theater near you. I went with nephew Zach and 15YOD today and found it riveting. Sean Penn gives an amazing performance as Harvey Milk, and the actual news footage interspersed throughout the film was like a living history flashback for me. I’d forgotten just how smarmy Anita Bryant could be.
