Dear Mr. Letterman,

Several weeks ago I wrote you a heartfelt letter expressing my concern for the direction that your show was headed. I am sad to see that you have not only not reined in the nastiness, but that your spin cycle is now on viciousness overload.

Mr. Letterman, this is not about your liberalism. I was a fan of yours for 20 years, and put politics aside as my fellow Republicans abandoned your show in droves. I defended you sir, and I am now being forced to eat my words.

How dare you attack Sarah Palin’s family the way you have! How dare you sir!

Yes, I know you apologized, but only after the heat was turned up. Governor Palin accepted your apology, and I will as well. Yet it doesn’t change the fact that for too long you have been taking too many cheap shots at people who don’t share your political ideology.

You have a child yourself, and if I remember correctly, one that was conceived out of wedlock. You were not attacked for this. You even gushed when Oprah sent you a fruit basket, but now you are using your nightly platform to destroy a family. What human being does this?

You and others on the left seem to think that because Sarah Palin is a social conservative, and social conservatives preach abstinence, that her apolitical unwed teenage daughter giving birth to a beautiful child renders the entire family hypocrites. That disgusting argument is for another day. The beautiful Palin family is just a fraction of your problem. Your major problem Mr. Letterman, is you. You are entering your later years. You are losing market share. All empires fall, and all talent leaves the screen. The issue is whether they walk off the field, or are dragged kicking and screaming. It was one thing to consistently lose in the ratings to Jay Leno. Losing to Conan O’Brien will make you ill.

Yes, we all know Johnny Carson wanted you to be his successor. I backed you. I was wrong. I thought you were funnier than Jay Leno, but you were not Tonight Show material. Johnny Carson was not mean. Jay Leno was pleasant and fair. In fact, the criticism of him was that he was “too nice.” He was so nice that he said nice things about you, which did not seem to be reciprocated. Again, I say this as someone who watched your show, not his. As Conan O’Brien continues the trend of lighthearted comedy, you just get older, meaner, angrier, and nastier. If this is a strategy, it will backfire.

You see Mr. Letterman, the angry left already has two people desperately playing to the “hip, cool” crowd that most Americans find obnoxious. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert already have your audience. While Stewart is going down the same hateful path that you are, Colbert at least makes an effort to try and be liberal without being hateful.

Dave, you were good way back when because you were fresh and original. Now it is the same thing every night, except more hostile. Sure, there are always people willing to watch angry hatemongers rant and rave like lunatics in an asylum. Yet you Dave are obsessed with ratings. Have you seen the ratings of Keith Olbermann?

You did a very funny joke back in the 1990s contrasting your vacation with Bill Clinton’s vacation.

“While on vacation, members of Bill Clinton’s staff criticized his job performance and demanded that he resign. While on vacation, members of my staff criticized my job performance and demanded that I resign.”

Dave, you might wish to prepare to receive that gold plated CBS watch or fountain pen. Johnny Carson walked off under his own power, his numbers softening but his dignity still intact. You might wish to consider the same. Dave, everybody knows that you still worship Johnny Carson. You idolize him. He was your hero. You have said this many times. Well Johnny would never approve of your telling x-rated jokes about sweet young girls that deserve the protection that all private citizens deserve.

I notice that you do not make fun of the trials and tribulations of the children of Al Gore and Joe Biden, which are significantly more serious than that of Bristol Palin. Bristol Palin has not committed any crimes or broken any laws. I know you are too old to be familiar with Pink Floyd, but Dave, “Leave those kids alone.”

Dave, this is about more than ideological bigotry, which I have dedicated my life to fighting and ending. This is about the only thing that really matters after we are all gone, that being history. Don’t even pretend for one second that you don’t spend every waking minute worrying about your legacy. You are tarnishing yourself at an accelerating rate. This will not be forgotten unless you redeem yourself, and fast. Half-hearted, non-apology apologies are not going to cut it. Sincerity would be a good start.

Maybe you truly do not care what people think, but if that is the case, your downward spiral will rival Rosie O’Donnell and every other leftist grievance monster that cannot understand why the audience does not love their spreading of hatred. I have done everything I can do Dave, because I genuinely did care. Dave, I have to tell you that after observing Mr. O’Brien, you are not cut out to be my 11:35pm apprentice. You are just too hateful.

Mr. Trump is busy, and CBS is spineless, and the feminists are as hypocritically calculating as ever, but they do not run my household. I handle things for my viewing household.

Dave…You’re fired.

eric  aka the Tygrrrr Express

Yes, Johnny Carson preferred that David Letterman get his job (I watch Letterman, although less so lately), but the network saw Leno as the logical heir. Letterman is just too acid-tongued. It makes for some fun comedy, but the “Tonight Show” is about harmless and lighthearted fun. It made sense that Craig Kilborn, who was harder-edged than Conan, followed Letterman. Craig Ferguson, like Letterman, let’s his liberal political ideology affect his monologues.

Conan O’Brien, a former writer for the “Simpsons,” is mild, self-deprecating, and inoffensive. Yet he is still funny. One great thing about Conan is that his show might be the only one (besides Letterman) where the sidekick actually matters. Having Andy Richter come back is fabulous. Richter is one of those people who never had the success outside of the show that his talent merited. Conan and Richter can take the most mundane things and make them funny. I used to love when they would sit and have those old fashioned staring contests. Of course it was great when they would put on black robes, dim the lights, shine flashlights on themselves, and talk about life “In the Year 2000.” Two of those I will always remember, from 1994.

Conan: “In the year 2000, an assassination attempt on the President will be narrowly averted when the shooter misses from close range. The gunman’s name…John Starks.”

Richter: “In the year 2000, baby seals will no longer be killed for their warm, shiny coats. However, they will still be killed…for revenge.”

Even when Conan O’Brien made fun of political figures, it was so over the top that it was seen as harmless. The skit with the lips cut out was hysterically funny. The Bill Clinton character would come out and say “Yee-haw! Nee-haw! Woo doggie!” After Clinton defeated Bob Dole, the Clinton character said that he was “…going to seek punitive action against the states that didn’t vote for me. I’m gonna wup those states. I’m gonna wup their @sses.”

As Conan innocently tried to get the President to settle down, the Clinton character continued. “Forget gays in the military. I’m sending gays to those states. Let’s see how they like being called ‘Oklahomo’ for awhile. Conservative my @ss.” Conan would then interject with mock indignation cries of “Sir, that’s highly inappropriate.”

The Don King character was hysterically funny:

Conan: “Christmas boxing sir?”

Don King Character: “That’s right Conan, I’m calling it the ‘Mayhem in Bethlehem.’ ‘The Holy War in the Holy Land.’ $49.95, only on pay-per-view.”

Conan: “The O.J. Simpson civil verdict?”

Don King Character: “That’s right Conan, I’m calling it the ‘Molesto in Modesto.’ ‘The Fury With No Jury.’ Only on pay-per-view.”

Conan would wrestle with the fake demons in his head. On one side would be the devil. Yet on the other side, instead of an angel, would be a bear. The devil would advocate bad deeds, and the bear would recommend that Conan eat some honey.

The importance of all of this is that comedians that need viciousness to survive are as weak as comedians that need foul language or bigoted jokes to make a living.

Rush Limbaugh has remarked that early in his career, he was being molded into a shock jock. He heard Joe Pyne tell a caller to “gargle with razorblades.” Yet when Rush studied the great comedians of all time, he noticed that they were not mean, and did not insult people. In fact, outside of Don Rickles, where everybody knew it was an act, all of the top comedians were nice.

Comedy has gotten coarser today, as has society in general. This can be seen in the failed attempts at humor over Barack Obama. Too many liberal comedians will not mock him, and too many conservative comedians just echo the viciousness that liberal comedians directed at George W. Bush (although with much less ferocity and drool.).

Conan O’Brien has stayed above the fray. He is silly, and sometimes sophomoric, but he simply refuses to be mean. Even Triumph the Insult Comic Dog just wants somebody to poop on.

Conan is a nice guy, and It is good to see a nice guy finish first. As boxing promoter Don King would say, “Congratulations Conan, my jughead, potato eating friend.” May your successor in 2026 be just as nice and just as funny.

eric  aka the Tygrrrr Express

blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

I had the pleasure of seeing an independent film named “Corked,” a movie that satirizes the pomposity and smugness of the culture of Sonoma Wine Country.

As somebody who does not drink alcohol, does not go to independent films, and does not drive my car outside the West side of Los Angeles (it’s an old car), I forayed into Downtown LA to watch a “mockumentary“ where adult beverages were served.

I will spare you the elitist, flowery rhetoric about how it pops out of the bottle with energy and flows smoothly until the viewing palate is pleased. I remember seeing a commercial where wine tasters exclaimed, “Splendid clarity. Excellent Nose.” I wanted to smack these people, and also wanted to know if Hollywood celebrities could have a form of rhinoplasty that would enhance their wine drinking sensation.

In pure, non-aristocratic terms, this movie is funny. It is very funny. Try to picture Eugene Levy in “Best in Show” mating with Jane Wyman in “Falcon Crest.” (Please think of this in a G-rated manner. Ms. Wyman was Mrs. Ronald Reagan for heaven’s sake.)

This movie skewers the arrogance behind wine tasting. While it is not overtly political, it absolutely lacerates wine snobs, with politically incorrect humor that would please anybody with a pulse, much less a palate.

Virtually none of the characters have redeeming qualities. One wine honcho wears a tuxedo to the vineyards, while failing to understand why the Mexican workers dislike him. Another wine owner runs a one-man operation, falling asleep on the job from exhaustion. Another wine top dog is the son of a Texas billionaire who just wants his son to stay out of trouble. The marketing team are condescending racists trying to market wine to minorities.

Everybody in wine country wants to please Mr. Parsons, a tuxedo-sporting wine aficionado and critic that makes the late Mr. Blackwell (Hollywood’s worst dressed list) seem warm and fuzzy. Mr. Parsons decides who gets to win the “Golden Harvest Award.” The Golden Harvest Awards are very similar to the Oscars, in that virtually nobody outside the industry cares, but the narcissistic participants think that the fate of the free world hangs on their every move.

The brilliance behind Corked is producer Brian A. Hoffman. (Full disclosure: I know him. If I would have hated the movie I would have just kept my mouth shut.) The movie took him over three years to make, but on a shoe-string budget he has really hit one out of the ballpark. The characters are well fleshed out, and the dialogue is clever.

The movie should be watched twice, once just for laughs, and a second time for political junkies. At no time does a single political issue or politician get mentioned, but those who believe in political correctness get to have their beliefs stomped on like the sour grapes they spew. (For those who care about the rights of innocent fruits and vegetables, no actual grapes were harmed in the making of this movie.)

For those of you in Los Angeles, head down to the Downtown Independent Theater on 251 S. Main Street. The show is running there through June 11th. For everyone else, the Website spills all. To those who are too elitist to traipse into neighborhoods where commoners exist to watch lesser known actors, the solution is simple. Drop the pretenses, lighten up, have a drink, and go get Corked. You’ll be glad you did.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

Not since the creation of the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos has something so useless entered American culture with such fanfare. Americans are all atwitter about Twitter. It was bad enough when people began chatting with total strangers online about their private lives. Then the blogosphere exploded and we all moved one step closer to becoming the nation of Narcissista. Then MySpace and Facebook came along, and everybody felt the need to make every aspect of their lives public.

Look, I admit to being a blogger, and one of the better ones. Yet my blog actually covers issues and events. The following paragraph is what my blog is not about:

I had a piece of toast today. It was yummy. I could not decide between butter and margarine, they both taste good. My sister is such a bizzatch. Social studies class sucks. I am so going to buy that new outfit at Benetton.

If anybody cares what teenage girls have to say, I have not met them. Giving them computers and I-Pods and I-Phones and I-everything else has turned them into the people of I, I, I, I, I. Yet, if MySpace is the beginning of the end of civilization, then Twitter is bringing the Apocalypse.

The way Twitter works is that people write short posts of no more than 140 words. A post is called a “tweet.” People tweet on Twitter. Shorter posts were designed for people to post but not convey their life story. You’re supposed to shut up and get to the point. Instead, people just engaged in round the clock, multiple posts.

8am: “I had a piece of toast. It was yummy. I could not decide between butter or margarine.”

8:02am: “My sister is such a bizzatch.”

8:05am: “Social studies class is too hard.”

8:07am: “I can’t wait to buy that new outfit at Benetton.”

Yet as awful as this mental masturbation is, it is harmless by itself. It truly becomes toxic when mixed with another kind of twit…the Hollywood Celebrity.

The California Supreme Court recently upheld the will of the people by affirming the constitutionality of Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage. The Hollywood twits twittered away. Alyssa Milano, the kid from “Who’s the Boss,” only gets attention because she’s young and hot asked, “How is it possible? Supreme Court Upheld Proposition 8?”

How is it possible? I could teach her how a bill becomes a law, and what voter initiatives are, but her head may explode. I could explain that appeals courts are supposed to follow the law, not make law.

Ellen DeGeneres said, “H8 Sucks!!!”

I despise acronyms, capital letters, and exclamation points in commentary. Ellen did all three. I should have yelled out, “H8…B3…O75…Bingo!!!!!!”

Is that the best Ellen can do? H8 Sucks? Who could possibly disagree with that? Hey Ellen, I dislike sanctimonious talk show hosts, but at least you’re eloquent at times. This is not one of those times.

Amber Benson, said, “The Supreme Court blows.” Miss Nicky Hilton found this whole thing, “disgusting,” which is ironic coming from anyone in the Hilton family. One person wrote, “I blame Miss California.”

It is times like this that I support reinstating a literacy test for voters, especially people in Hollywood or under 25 years of age.

The final straw came when I tried doing what had always been a normal activity, watching football. Five of us have been friends for 20 years, but I was totally unprepared for the biggest abuse of technology since fake tanning salons. Two of the guys checked each other’s Twitter page to see what the other one was doing. Both pages confirmed that both of them were currently watching the game with each other.

Finally I had had enough. “You are watching football with him. He is watching football with you. I am in the room with both of you. I don’t need to go to a computer to know this. We have been doing this 20 years. This is insanity.”

One of them asked, “Yeah, but if I don’t have my Twitter Page, how will I know the score of the game?”

I wanted to shoot them, but perhaps modern science can study them better if they live.

The solution to Twitter is the same as the solution to all Hollywood celebrities. Follow the example of Nancy Reagan, and “Just say no.” Even if somebody offers to spray your computer with non-Oxynol 9 to prevent computer viruses, decline to  screw around with this. Abstinence remains the only safe policy.

No more Hollywood Twit(terer)s.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

A new television animation show will be debuting tonight on ABC, and it has the potential to be really “Goode.”

“The Goode Family” is the story of a politically correct family of environmental zealots and there are two reasons I will give this show a chance. First of all, it is created by Mike Judge. While I did not take part in the “Beavis and Butthead” craze, I was an avid fan of “King of the Hill.”

I’m still disappointed that Hank Hill and his friends are leaving after 13 seasons. In the history of television, there will never be a character as cool and incomprehensible as Boomhauer. Grandpa Cotton was also a feisty one.

“King of the Hill” was about a group of Texans, but did not make fun of Southerners. It made fun of those who misunderstood them. When a Massachusetts client insisted on calling Hank “J.R.,” and asking him to wear a ten gallon hat, Hank coolly replied that “Texas has changed a lot in the last 150 years.” When a touchy-feely liberal wanted Hank to “bond with him,” and “meld their positive energies,” Hank responded for all of Middle America when he said to the do-gooder, “How ’bout I just kick your @ss?”

Hank was just a regular guy who believed in Jesus, the Dallas Cowboys, and propane over charcoal. He was at his best lamenting about his son, saying, “Well I want to hang out with Bobby, but the problem is the boy’s not really good at anything.”

All good things come to an end. Out of “King of the Hill” comes “The Goode Family.”

And here’s reason number two I’ll give “Goode” a chance: It’s hated by the bad and the ugly — that being the Jayson Blair Times. The Jayson Blair Times has become a despicable entity specifically because it treats anybody right of center as either being evil, or a complete imbecile. The examples are endless, but the bad and the ugly coming out of the JBT can be found most recently in their article knocking the Goode.

…the show feels aggressively off-zeitgeist, as if it had been incubated in the early to mid-’90s when it was still possible to find global-warming skeptics among even the reasonable and informed.

Oh, those off-zeitgeist people. Don’t you just hate them?

Being a skeptic is soooo 1990s. Only an unreasonable and ill-informed person could possibly question anything that Al Gore says. After all, he won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize. He has to be right. Here’s some more pompous drivel from the JBT.

But who really thinks of wind power — an allusion to which is a running visual gag in the show — as mindless, left-wing nonsense anymore?

Apparently Ted Kennedy does. He refused to allow a wind farm in front of his home because it blocked the view off of his Nantucket paradise.

Mr. Judge, who remains obsessed with the insanities of political correctness, still has his head very much in the Clinton years, and it is possible to watch ‘The Goode Family’ feeling so thoroughly transported back to another time that you wonder where all the Monica Lewinsky jokes went. Sometimes you’ve just got to move on.

Move on? This coming from the newspaper that thinks that FDR is in his 20th term? This from the paper that wants to throw President Bush and all of his advisers in jail? This from the paper that still gets page one stories wrong and issues mealy-mouthed retractions on page 37?

This leftist paper not only wants to declare global warming skepticism passe, but political correctness as well.

While it is a shame that Hank Hill will no longer be fighting the good fight, Mike Judge still will be. I expect the show to succeed because Mike Judge understands that while the social message is important, the main goal is to be funny. “King of the Hill” did have mild political overtones, but it lasted 13 seasons because it was likable and funny.

Long live the Goode family. May they triumph over their bad, ugly critics.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express – blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

At the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Ms. Sykes decided to lob verbal grenades at Rush Limbaugh. The leftist ideological bigots that make up much of the mainstream media will offer pathetic and predictable defenses. Inevitable choruses of “she was just making jokes,” and “Rush can dish it out, but he can’t take it” will try to drown out the truth.

This cannot be allowed to happen.

I personally have never had any major objections to Wanda Sykes. I find her humor tasteless, but nothing more. Her skit about tying the feet of black quarterbacks so they would stop running around may have been the death knell for the once brilliant program “Inside the NFL,” but by then the show was already in free fall.

Yet suppose I were to remark that as punishment for her poor humor and caustic comments, she should be waterboarded or hung from the nearest tree. I would be branded a racist, a sexist, and a bigot. I might be arrested and charged with plotting a hate crime. The reason for this is because there is nothing funny or humorous about killing somebody.

Yet liberals fail to respect this view.

Jon Stewart and other comedians have referred to George W. Bush as a war criminal. Leftist radio personalities joke about raping Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice. “Abort Sarah Palin” t-shirts are trendy among Democrats on college campuses. Miss California Carrie Prejean was verbally and emotionally violated by Perez Hilton, who feels that spreading ideological bigotry is the way to spread tolerance of his own lifestyle.

Now Rush Limbaugh is being Garofaloed by Wanda Sykes.

Her “comedy routine” was motivated by the same factor that got Jon Stewart to lash out. Any criticism of President Barack Obama will be met with large heapings of liberal abuse. In fact, if either Sykes or Stewart were attacking a Palestinian, the response would be mischaracterized as “disproportionate.”

Rush Limbaugh was asked whether or not he wanted Barack Obama to fail. Limbaugh very clearly stated that if Barack Obama were to try and enact policies that would be bad for the country, then the attempt to enact those policies should fail.

In an adult and reasonable world, that is called “disagreeing” with somebody.

Wanda Sykes went on television and made a ludicrous comment. “Rush Limbaugh wants Barack Obama to fail. That means he wants America to fail. He wants this country to fail…”

No, it does not mean that at all. Yet what she said after that truly became speech that only a liberal could embrace.

“I hope his kidneys fail.”

Are any liberals going to condemn this remark?

President Obama will not. He was too busy laughing. The media toadies will not. They made sure that Barack Obama found it funny, and then allowed themselves to find it funny.

Ms. Sykes also expressed the heinous notion that Rush was “the 20th Hijacker on 9/11.” She reasoned that his being responsible for the atrocities that murdered 3000 people was due to his “being high on Oxycontin.”

For those curious as to why Ms. Sykes has such rage, I read her Wikipedia page. She was married to a man for eight years. Her marriage failed. There is no joke here. I do not want anybody’s marriage to fail. She then became a lesbian and married a woman. Whatever a person’s views on gay marriage, I do not want that relationship of hers to fail either. She is an outspoken advocate of gay marriage, and very militant about the passage of California Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage.

There we go. Now we know why she despises conservatives.

If the left had an ounce of intellectual honesty, they would admit that Barack Obama and Rush Limbaugh have the exact same position on gay marriage. Barack Obama may not mean it, but the issue is not that he holds beliefs out of political expediency. Giving a prominent liberal a pass for beliefs that are identical to a conservative expressing those beliefs, and then lambasting the conservative, is ideological bigotry.

This is not about issues. It is about leftist hatred.

Leftists hate people who disagree with them. Conservatives cannot be a noble opposition. They are evil, and need to be destroyed.

When conservatives use words like “evil,” and “destroy,” they are referring to Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, and their ilk.

Liberals see conservatives in this vein. Comparisons of President George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler are as common as they are odious.

Wanda Sykes is a black, female, lesbian, liberal. Rush Limbaugh is a white, male, heterosexual, conservative.  Therefore, his criticism of Barack Obama’s policies are considered hate speech, while her calling Rush a murderer who she wished death upon is considered comedy.

This madness has to stop. Ordinary people have to stop cowering in fear. Hatred is poison, and no minority group should use past injustices as a sledgehammer against innocent victims today. It is not about race, gender, or sexual orientation. It is about basic human decency. So once again, let me explain to the left how human decency works.

I want Barack Obama to personally succeed. I want his marriage to remain strong, and his children to grow up and lead happy lives. I want him to experience intellectual growth, emotional nourishment, physical strength, and medical normalcy.

I also want Barack Obama’s policies to fail if I believe they are bad for America.

His health care idea in its current form is too heavy with government bureaucracy and too light on free enterprise. The idea in its current form needs to fail. If he would work with Republicans on a better plan, that plan may deserve to succeed.

His cap and trade idea has the potential to become a regulatory nightmare that will destroy the American economy. Any plan derived from that idea should fail.

He wants to raise capital gains taxes. This will be a disincentive to invest. This will be a disincentive to take risks. America was founded on the idea of entrepreneurship and risk taking. Raising capital gains taxes is bad for America. I want this policy to fail. If he tries to lower capital gains taxes, I will want this policy to succeed. I do not care where good or bad ideas come from. I care about the actual ideas.

This is why I am a conservative. I have no patience for ideological bigotry.

Some liberals will howl that I am lumping them all in with Wanda Sykes. My response to them is that if they want to be separated from such vile speech, they must unequivocally condemn it. They should howl at Ms. Sykes, not me.

Evil exists when good people do nothing to stop it. Calling somebody a murderer and wishing for their kidneys to fail, even in the context of a joke, is evil. Yet I don’t want Wanda Sykes to die. I don’t want her kidneys to fail. I want her to become a better human being. For now, the world will be a better place if Wanda Sykes has one thing fail…her vocal chords.

When every leftist bully from the executive level to Congresspeople to their parasitic defenders from Hollywood and the media gets laryngitis, the healing can begin.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com

Jon Stewart makes Arlen Specter look principled.

Like Pee Wee Herman, Jon Stewart launched his intercontinental ballistic missile, and he could not put the missile back on the launching pad. In his case, the only thing that seeped out was stupidity.

Jon Stewart, for those who are not “trendy,” “hip,” or “cool” (brie-cheese-eating-elitist-snobs according to the Tygrrrr Express dictionary), has a nightly political television show where he presents the news with all the accuracy and fairness of the Jayson Blair Times.

Yet he is slightly different from the JBT. The JBT wants to be taken seriously, despite being leftist, boring, and usually wrong. Jon Stewart wants to be taken seriously when it suits him, and as a comedian when that benefits him. He straddles like Bill Clinton, only with his trousers on. On the one hand, Stewart claims to offer intelligent political insight. Yet when challenged a couple of years ago, Stewart took the defensive posture that his show was followed by “crank calls by puppets.”

This is not about “Crank Yankers.” This is about acting like a cranky wanker.

Jon Stewart had his CW moment when debating the absolutely brilliant Cliff May. I know Cliff personally. He is no partisan hack. He is a serious policy analyst with expertise in matters of national security. People who attend his lectures are better off for it.

Cliff May debated Jon Stewart on torture, and the only thing that was definitely tortured was Stewart trying to keep up. Cliff May did not use coercive interrogation methods on Jon Stewart, but he certainly put him in an uncomfortable stress position. Stewart was twisted into a pretzel by the time the debate was done.

Here is May’s recap of the events.

May asked Stewart if Harry Truman was a war criminal for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Stewart hemmed, hawed, and fumbled his words. For a man who lambasted President George W. Bush for malaprops and syntax fracturing, Stewart sure looked like the pot calling the kettle African-American. In fact, he looked like President Obama without a teleprompter.

He eventually blurted out that, yes, Harry Truman was a war criminal.

Then came the backlash from the millions of people that understand that America is about Jimmy Stewart, not Jon Stewart.

Jon Stewart then apologized on a later show. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to apologize after a backlash occurs. After all, free speech is not free. Just ask Dr. Laura. Jon Stewart may have come to understand that some of his sponsors do business with Middle America.

Yet, this is about something deeper. Why does Jon Stewart give latitude to Harry Truman while skewering George W. Bush?

Because ideological bigotry requires that liberals and Democrats be exalted while Republicans and conservatives are skewered. Actual issues are irrelevant.

(For those that are part of the Jon Stewart love orgy, Ideological Bigotry is my groundbreaking new book that exposes leftist hatred. Middle America gets it. You should as well.)

Jon Stewart realized that he criticized a Democrat. It is better to be a hypocrite and anger people that you already detest than to be consistent and anger people you love. It is not possible to unite everybody on your side, but it is possible to unite people against you.

So let me offer some common sense that will be self-explanatory to Middle America.

Harry Truman did the right thing. He made an impossible choice that none of us will ever have to make. His job was not, as some liberals insist, to save the world. His job was to save America. We were under attack. By killing many innocent Japanese civilians, he prevented millions of Americans from being killed. He did the one thing a president must do. He kept us safe. As an extra benefit, millions of people worldwide were saved.

George W. Bush also did the right thing. He also made the impossible choice. He also responded to an attack on our soil by going everywhere terrorists were harbored and protected.

We were attacked by Japan, but Harry Truman took the fight to Germany. Germany never attacked us. So what? They were part of the problem.

We were attacked by Al Queda, but George W. Bush took the fight to Iraq. Iraq never attacked us. So what? They were part of the problem, as are Iran and Syria.

More people died at the hands of Harry Truman than George W. Bush. The numbers are not even close. Harry Truman took measures more brutal than anything George W. Bush ever did. Harry Truman ordered the most unimaginable response.

So if Harry Truman was right, then George W. Bush cannot be a war criminal.

Jon Stewart knows this. To deny this is to be intellectually dishonest, or as I say in my Tygrrrr Express dictionary, “a liberal.”

Jon Stewart once remarked that when George W. Bush was right about something, “My head may explode.”

Well, feel free to spontaneously combust, Mr. Stewart. George W. Bush got the biggest thing right that he was asked to do.

Jon Stewart has his right to free speech because George W. Bush protected and defended that right.

Yet Jon Stewart allowed fear of being called a hypocrite to overrule common sense.

He then realized that nobody has a right to earn tons of money from “free” speech.

Jon Stewart was not protecting free speech. He was protecting very expensive, highly paid speech.

It is at that moment that he decided to “apologize” and defend his bottom (left) flank.

He had the courage of his “convictions,” which was to defend his rumpus from financial harm.

Real courage would be Jon Stewart offering an apology to George W. Bush while he is still alive to hear it.

Farewell, Captain Chaos.

The great ones leave us way too soon. Dom DeLuise has left the road on Earth for the big racetrack in the sky.

As a young boy, Burt Reynolds was my hero. Yet every hero needs a sidekick, and Burt Reynolds became as great as he was with considerable comic relief from the equally great Dom DeLuise.

As a favor to the Republican Party, Dom DeLuise helped attempt to deliver a pregnant elephant in “Smokey and the Bandit II.” Yet his hilarity peaked with “Cannonball Run” and “Cannonball Run II.”

Burt Reynolds was the cool guy everybody wanted to be and hang out with. Yet he was so serious about having fun that he often forgot how to actually have fun. Dom DeLuise truly just wanted to have fun. Winning was secondary.

When they are about to win a race, Dom DeLuise’s character Victor hears a woman crying for her drowning “baby.” Dom turns from the everyman Victor into “Captain Chaos,” or as Reynolds’s JJ refers to him derisively, “him.” JJ repeatedly scolds Victor, saying, “I don’t ever want to talk about ‘him.’”

‘He’ jumped in the water, saved what was actually a small dog, and cost his team the race. An enraged Reynolds wants an explanation, and Captain Chaos, beaming with pride, says, “JJ, I saved that woman’s dog.”

(My own attempt at “coolness” under pressure was taken straight from these guys)

The world needs straight men, but it needs court jesters. Dom DeLuise was no fool, building his brand name into a successful line of cookbooks and children’s books. Yet few ever played the fool better than he did.

Even a trip to the mini-market was amusing. “I picked up a beer for you, and a Dr. Pepper for me. I’m a pepper, you’re a pepper, he’s a pepper, she’s a pepper…”

Burt Reynolds had it easy. He would get exasperated by a character that would exasperate anybody. Yet DeLuise somehow kept his characters lovable.

We all have that person we know that “has a good heart.” They have “the best of intentions.” They “mean well.” Now those are euphemisms for screwups, and in real life they drive us crazy. Yet on the big screen, DeLuise helped us unwind. Why be uptight? Why go ballistic if we don’t win at something? Can’t we just have fun?

DeLuise was fun. He had plenty of success on his own, with absolute hilarity ensuing from his performance of Julius Caesar in “History of the World, Part I.”

Often mistaken for Chef Paul Prudhomme, it is no surprise that he became a chef himself.

He befriended Kermit the Frog, the first step in spreading “The Rainbow Connection.”

He was the tiger that befriended Feivel the Mouse.

He was the oddest of the “Spaceballs,” the voice of Pizza the Hutt.

In the same year he was “Fatso,” he was also Shadrach in “Wholly Moses.”

He was large in girth, and even more gigantic in spirit.

The racetrack just became a small bit emptier. We cannot drive on the same road forever.

Yet as Dom DeLuise reminded Burt Reynolds and all of us in “Cannonball Run,” with virtually zero eloquence and plenty of heart, it is the journey that matters, not the destination.

He did not always win the race, but he was a winner in life and in our hearts.

He was only the sidekick, but he was no second banana.

He was larger than life, and kept diving into the meal that is life itself.

He died a satiated man.

May we all get to experience as much flavor of this world as he did.

May we all have fun doing it.

Rest in peace, Captain Chaos.

eric

I have said on more than one occasion that I admire Donald Trump, and that I enjoy watching “the Apprentice,” and “Celebrity Apprentice.” A recent episode I watched reinforced my sentiments.

Yes, Donald Trump likes to do things in grand style. Yes, style is a major part of everything he does. Yet my admiration for Mr. Trump is because when the rubber meets the road, substance wins. In Donald Trump’s world,  it is all about merit. He wants the best and brightest. He also wants the toughest. He wants those who work the hardest.

Last year, I praised him for selecting Piers Morgan to be the “Celebrity Apprentice.” Piers was not the most likable (although I thought he was fabulous). He was simply the best. The whole point of “Celebrity Apprentice” is to raise money for charity. Piers Morgan raised the most money.

Piers took a bruising to his humanity from a woman named Omarosa, whose only skill until her stint on the “Apprentice” seemed to be bungling her way to the top. In fact, she was even fired from the Clinton administration for incompetence. I did not know it was even possible to be too incompetent for that group.

Yet while Omarosa made fun of Piers Morgan’s family, his teeth, and even his sexuality, Mr. Morgan just kept raising money.

The 2009 version of “Celebrity Apprentice” has been even more vicious. The role of the villain vacated by Mr. Morgan has been filled by World Poker Champion Annie Duke.

Let me detour briefly by admitting a bias. Every time Annie Duke is mentioned in the same sentence as the words “poker,” and “branding,” I imagine what it would be like to use the instrument to imprint my initials on her (redacted).

Now about cattle prods…oh wait, wrong column. Back to Annie Duke. She is gorgeous, smart, and a mother of four children. She is 38, looks 28, and runs circles around weaker candidates on the show.

Joan Rivers has referred to Annie Duke as Adolf Hitler. As the son of a holocaust survivor, I find that deeply offensive. Then again, Joan and Melissa Rivers are not known for their grace and dignity.

The feud started when Annie Duke decided to align herself with Playboy Playmate (not literally, unfortunately) Brandy Roderick against Melissa Rivers. The logic was that Brandy was seen as the weaker player, so by getting Melissa Rivers out of the way, Annie would have a smoother ride to the finish line.

There is nothing illegal about this. It’s a game for crying out loud. Joan screamed at Annie, bellowing that she was a “poker player,” as if that was supposed to mean something bad.

What Joan and Melissa Rivers were actually complaining about was that Annie Duke was playing the game better.

That is merit. That is why Donald Trump has fired Melissa Rivers and kept Annie Duke. Like Omarosa before her, Melissa Rivers went into a tirade that would make the late baseball manager Billy Martin proud.

Tossing around f-bombs as if she were Rahm Emanuel, she spent several weeks whining and complaining that she was not popular. She kept saying that watching Annie Duke and Brandy Roderick freeze her out “reminded her of high school.”

So while she was complaining, the other two women were raising money.

In an act of desperation, the crying Rivers Joan and Melissa actually thought that Donald Trump would frown upon Annie Duke being “unladylike.” I mean she cursed people out over the telephone when she felt they were trying to screw her out of a victory.

So what? She was successful. This is about merit. It is not about methods. Does anybody in their right mind think that Trump cries in the boardroom in real life? Of course not. Sometimes he has to rip into people. The only thing that matters is results.

When I looked at Melissa Rivers explaining over and over how unfair life was, it made me wonder if she understood that most people do not have fame and fortune thrust on them at birth.

Yet the real bitterness of Melissa Rivers was that she could not accept the cold, hard truth. Annie Duke and Brandy Roderick were better than her. They are better looking, better acting, and better at raising money.

Raising money is what Trump wants. It is why, despite notions when the show started several years ago, that he would simply reward the hottest women, this did not happen.

Every once in awhile he does appear to leave the reservation. He has a bias toward conflict. Despite the fact that executives praised model Carol Alt as being basically perfect, he fired her solely because he wanted Piers Morgan and Trace Adkins to face each other. They disliked each other, which made for more drama.

This year Clint Black seems to be the beneficiary of being a troublemaker. He would have been fired weeks ago, except that other candidates raised less money. T from TLC and Chloe Kardashian were fired for suspect reasons.

Yet most of the time, Trump gets it dead on right. Melissa Rivers yelled, yelped, griped, screamed, cursed, whined, and adjectived.

Annie Duke simply looked Trump in the eye, and in so many words, explained that she was the best.

All the hate speech by the Rivers hydra could not alter the numbers.

Those who don’t follow the show, when given a choice, would rather paddle Annie Duke over Melissa Rivers.

Yet adolescent male fantasies aside, even Donald Trump does not factor that into his decision making.

His criteria is simple. Can you do the d@mn job?

In a world where every minority group claims victimhood, there are still places where merit matters.

If you look at past Apprentice winners, from the brilliant Randall Pinkett (black), to Kendra (woman), to Bill Rancic (white male), they won because they were the best. With Randall, you could tell in the first episode that he was far better than everybody else. He was also the most likable.

Donald Trump is not against diversity, but diversity can be accomplished without sacrificing skill and talent.

It is about being the best. Those who are not the best get sent home.

That is why Annie Duke keeps racking up chips, and why Melissa Rivers was cashed out.

Neither Melissa Rivers or her Hitler-spouting mother get it.

Annie Duke gets it.

As for Donald Trump, he absolutely still gets it.

eric aka the Tygrrrr Express

blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2009/04/ideological-bigotry-my-book-is-now-available/

One of the great comedies of all time was the movie “Airheads,” featuring Brendan Fraser and Adam Sandler. When they end up accidentally taking hostages, they decide to make their demands so ridiculous that they will have the groundwork for an insanity plea. They request a football helmet filled with cottage cheese, a six foot baby bottle, and as the hostage negotiator quizzically and impatiently asks them, “Naked pictures of Bea Arthur?”

Later on in the movie, Judd Nelson shows up as a sleazy record executive willing to say anything to make a deal. He sees the others looking at “stuff, “peers over, and asks, “Say, is that Bea Arthur?” When the guys respond in the affirmative, without missing a beat, he says, “Outstanding. Come here, let’s talk.”

While Bea Arthur was not the most attractive woman, she never expressed resentment over jokes that made her the original “Ugly Betty.” The thing about Bea Arthur was that we knew that she could handle it. She was tough. She could throw it back in abundance.

She sparred with Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker. Her liberalism repeatedly smashed his conservatism. This led to her character, “Maude,” getting her own spinoff. Maude in turn led to the spinoff “Good Times,” with the main character being played by Esther Rolle, who was Maude’s housekeeper.

What made these programs so special is that they were fresh. Maude was a positive portrayal of a feminist. (Esther Rolle also offered one of the most positive portrayals of a strong black woman in the history of television.) Yes, Maude was an assertive woman. Yes, she was a fiery feminist. Yet she was not a man-hater. She was not bitter. She was happily married on the show. If more feminists could see that it is possible for a woman to be a staunch advocate for equality among women without the hostility and rage towards men, both men and women would be better off. Bea Arthur was what feminism should be about.

Bea Arthur was a likable feminist.

Yet it was the Golden Girls that allowed the jokes to come in abundance. Betty White was the sweet one. Rue McLanahan was the sexy one. Bea Arthur, as Estelle Getty once said in an episode, was the one that “most looked like Barnaby Jones.”

Jokes regarding her lack of sex appeal (exempting those that find Buddy Ebsen and sex appeal to be synonymous) actually once helped me in a softball game. I was glazed over from the night before, and jogged up to the mound to discuss strategy with the pitcher. This was considered odd since I was the batter on the opposing team.

I explained to the pitcher that I wanted to be intentionally walked. They were to pitch it low and outside. Given how exhausted I was, I would be an easy double play by the next batter. The pitcher refused to comply, so I had to use psychological warfare.

Getting ready to swing, I asked the pitcher if he ever watched geriatric porn. I announced that “I have a great video you should see starring Bea Arthur. It’s called ‘Golden Showers with the Golden Girls.’”

The pitcher called time-out, but by then the damage was done. After the worst four pitches I had ever faced, I had my unintentional walk. The umpire resisted the urge to eject me for “something that is just plain wrong.”

I still remember being in the car with my mother and my grandmother when I told my mom that I was romantically interested in an older woman. I was 27, and the woman was 34. My mother looked at me and said, “Eric, if this is that Bea Arthur thing again, I am going to smack you.” My cousin has a big mouth. The Bea Arthur stuff was not to get back to my family. As for my grandmother, she just calmly remarked and said, “Well Eric, she is a little old for you.”

Yet beneath all of the jokes, Bea Arthur deserved every bit of reverence that she ever received. She was the butt of jokes, but she was no joke. She was a brilliant actress. She even took what other women would consider liabilities, and turned them into advantages.

Men have long joked that she was a woman that looked like a man. As a teenager, her big stocky frame and deep voice led her to actually play male roles in school plays. If Shakespeare could use men to play women, there was nothing preventing a feminist from reversing the process and acting like a man, literally.

She was not the most beautiful. So what? She was voted “most witty” in her class.

She was funny, smart, caustic, and fiery. She was a feminist. Yet she was likable.

I wanted to make jokes about her this weekend, before finding out the sad news. I wanted to say that I met Bob Barker on Saturday afternoon (true), and asked him which of the Golden Girls he slept with in the 1950s (false…I asked if he could still beat up Adam Sandler, and he replied that he could beat up Adam Sandler and Regis Philbin.).

I wanted to joke that she should have been the first offensive tackle taken in the NFL Draft.

Yet I feel sadness that those jokes will now have to be put on the shelf.

I think what made it ok to compare Bea Arthur to Deacon Jones was that she never fought the stereotype. She made a career out of playing a manly feminist.

Deacon Jones was the NFL player famous for the (long since outlawed) “headslap.”

Bea Arthur was the woman that you could make jokes about behind her back, but that if you dared match wits with her to her face, she would verbally slap you silly.

Just ask Archie Bunker.

Jokes about her were fun because she would always have the last…and best…word.

As much as I enjoyed the jokes about her, most people including me loved her retorts.

She was the feminist who did not cry, complain, or express unfairness. She simply hit back.

Any woman that could unite feminists and alpha male comedians should be celebrated.

Any entertainer that could succeed on three different television shows should be respected.

Any performer that could conquer the small screen and Broadway should be admired.

Any woman that can make feminism and liberalism amusing and likable is miraculous.

She will be missed.

eric  aka the Tygrrrr Express

blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/2009/04/ideological-bigotry-my-book-is-now-available/