Michael Moore (to Obama) three months ago:
Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple.
Michael Moore yesterday:
Unless we stop this escalation of the Afghanistan war, we are going to have to quit calling it Bush's war and call it Obama's war.
Ok, maybe not so pure and simple.
PLEASE FORGIVE MY LACK OF FAITH: Oh good god:
You're such a good guy, Mr. President. […] I don't know what your team has been up to, but they haven't served you well. […] Look, I don't know if Rahm is the problem or if it's Gibbs or Axelrod or any of the other great people we owe a debt of thanks to for getting you elected. All I know is that whatever is fueling your White House it's now running on fumes. Time to shake things up! Time to bring me in to get you pumped up every morning! Go Barack! Yay Obama!
And as for the topic at hand, it's now "The war in Afghanistan has escalated." Thank you, passive voice, for helping yet another person insulate himself from a reality too painful to bear.
The Distant Ocean 
Now, wait a minute — as a student of Saturday morning Looney Tones, I seem to recall an episode where somebody – Bugs Bunny? – kept drawing line after line in the sand, hundreds of times over, knowing that his nemesis – Yosemite Sam? Elmer Fudd? Daffy Duck? – would keep stepping over them, until the last one, which he drew in the thin air over a cliff’s edge.
Maybe Moore has a shrewd plan like that up his sleeve, is all I’m saying. Eleven-dimensional chess and all.
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Gnome:
Yes, an apt analogy. Well done.
But if my Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour memories are correct, I believe it was the Roadrunner luring Wile E. Coyote over the cliff. Ah, Saturday mornings as a wee lad and twee.
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It was Bugs Bunny duping Yosemite Sam. The same cartoon where Sam says to Bugs, “This town’s not big enough for the two of us!” Bugs dashes off-screen. Sound of saws and hammers. Bugs returns. “Now is it big enough?” Shot of a major city. “No, it still ain’t big enough!” replies Sam.
There’s a lesson there.
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This is easily my favorite debate ever here. Dennis, I’m embarrassed that you remembered that better than me, given how much Bugs Bunny I watched as a kid. What’s your secret–rewatching them with the offspring, or a massive Star Trek-sized brain?
As for Moore, I’ve actually been waiting since his essay in November to see if or when he’d follow through on his promise to call Obama the “new war president” (sans conditional). Now I’m just wondering what his next fallback position will be.
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I imagine Dennis and I would close down any pub in town reliving old Looney Tunes plots. My hands-down favourite is the one where Bugs’s hole in the ground is in the way of a new skyscraper, and the construction goon goes to enourmous lengths to try to get rid of him.
When the big metal drum comes hurtling down on him and he says, ‘I’m feelin’ mighty low…’, I’m just dying.
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My favorite of the moment is “Bobby pins please.”
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One of my favorites that still busts me up any time I think of it is the one where Bugs has tormented Elmer to the brink of madness, and he has his shotgun trained on him, whereupon Bugs says, “Only a rat would shoot a guy…”
spins around
“…in the back!”
Elmer’s finger tightens on the trigger…
“I repeat: only a big, fat rat would shoot a guy in the back!”
BLAM!
Elmer gives the camera a sadistic grin: “So I’m a big fat wat!” (And Bugs leans in and kisses him on the lips anyway.)
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“As for Moore, I’ve actually been waiting since his essay in November to see if or when he’d follow through on his promise to call Obama the “new war president” (sans conditional). Now I’m just wondering what his next fallback position will be.”
Moore’s original “letter to Obama” was just an exercise in ego anyhow…
Moore is a symptom of the terminal political disease that is “democracy” in the here and now. Unfortunately he has a podium available whenever he wants one.
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Regarding your update: Moore is consistent in one thing: still exercising that ego! He could benefit from other forms of exercise…
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John, you have a very poor grip on satire.
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Yeah, Moore’s definitely got an ego. In fact I wouldn’t doubt that part of his quandary now is that he knows he should desert the Democrats (again), but he also knows that if he does so he’ll alienate large segments of his throngs of admirers. So the self-delusion that’s driven him to this rather spectacular relapse is fueled not just by his affection for and faith in Obama, but also by his need to always stand at the front of the crowd, pretending to be the leader.
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My god, that update makes me want to hurl myself from the nearest tall building.
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“What’s your secret–rewatching them with the offspring, or a massive Star Trek-sized brain?”
Both. I’m a life-long fan of classic animation, so a lot of it is stuck in my head. I once got paid $500 (plus travel and dinner) to screen and discuss Tex Avery’s work at Villanova. When I told my son about this many years later, he smiled. “Hey Dad. A couple of those a week and you’d have a great job!” If only.
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The most apt Looney Tunes quote in regards to Moore would have to be the immortal:
“I’ve seen better heads on a glass of root beer.”
— Bugs Bunny
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