Where Are Their Friends?
by Jeffrey JenaI have just lost one of my best friends to cancer. He was a great guy and a great friend. One of the things that made him a great friend was I could count on him to tell me the truth even when I didn’t want to hear it. He would tell you straight up that the girl you were dating wasn’t all that great for you or that your golf swing had more flaw than swing. He was sort of like a hillbilly Socrates in that he usually sent you the cold hard facts by asking you a question. There is an old saying that the truth without compassion is brutality and Bill usually had compassion but when I was being stubborn he could be a brute. When I was being a little big for my britches or getting ready to have a, “Hey watch this!” moment he let you know it. I was watching the television last weekend I had three occasions to ask myself, “Where are their friends?”
The first was while I was watching a guy I really like, Governor Mike Huckabee on Fox News. After watching Gov. Huckabee do a lot of guest spots on its other shows, Fox decided to give the Governor his own talk show. Being a great guest and an outstanding leader doesn’t mean you are automatically a great host. I watched the show the first time it was on and cringed but figured he was a good speaker and was used to talking to folks after being a pastor so he would grow into the role. After this weekend with the three Miss Americas and Rosie Perez someone should speak to the Governor. Does he know anyone who will tell him he makes a good talking head but if he ever wants to be taken seriously again for any major political office he should stop doing his talk show? Two of the Miss Americas singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was ironic in that that it is exactly what Fox should do with this show, send it somewhere on vacation. Does Fox not have a budget for writers? If the monologue jokes were any lamer they would have to come out in a wheelchair. Please, Governor Huckabee, for the sake of all conservatives everywhere stop being a third rate Jimmy Kimmel and start putting your organization together for 2012.
Then we had sweet lovable Helen Thomas making a fool of herself in front of yet another president. My Great Uncle is 93 and the state of Pennsylvania and his step daughter recently stepped in and took his drivers license after he sideswiped three cars on his way to church. Can’t someone who loves poor Helen do the same with her press pass? Isn’t there a nice group of Red Hat ladies she could go to Vegas with? You’d think the rest of the liberal “journalists” might have had a word with her a few months ago when she started spewing all her “what else should a journalist be except a liberal” stuff. But no, Helen Thomas is the AIG of White House reporters she is too big to fail!
Finally, where are the friends of Brett Favre? Why doesn’t his wife or his best hunting buddy take his Internet connection away from him at this time of year? This is the third straight year he has retired from football which I believe moves him ahead of George Blanda on the all-time list. Why didn’t he just let the Jets know he wasn’t coming back and head down to the bayou for some alone time?
I was just rereading this and thought it might be too snarky, I wish my buddy Bill was here to set me straight. Cue the James Taylor and fade to black.
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36 Comments
Jeff:
1. Brett Favre did tell the Jets he's done and has returned to Miss. He filed his retirement paperwork and everything. So he's done… for now.
2. Helen Thomas died two years ago, they've just propped up her corpse. Her questions now are in fact just built up gas escaping.
3. Though I'm not a Huckabee fan, he has at least found a way to maintain national exposure. Without other political office and without Saltzman winning the RNC, he doesn't have much else right now to keep his name alive for the next election.
[...] Online Dating Ebook put an intriguing blog post on Where Are Their Friends?Here’s a quick excerptHe would tell you straight up that the girl you were Bdating/B wasn’t all that great for you or that your golf swing had more flaw than swing. [...]
What did this moron do to deserve a front seat to all the Presidents?!
Part of political correctness is the elimination of the truth. To avoid offending any protected class of the disaffected, (old fat white guys or republicans may be disaffected but are not protected) we have been intimidated into silence. It would be nice to have some honesty.
The other thought is that Mick Huckabee has let himself become an updated Lil' Abner caricature. He can't win on the national stage.
1. Huckabee isn't a conservative.
2. He won't be able to beat Gov. Palin and/or Gov. Jindal (if he decides to run) in for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 2012.
I've said this before, I'll say it again…you're a good man Jeff Jena. I'm sorry to hear of the loss of your friend, Bill.
Nothing to worry about as your posts @ Big Hollywood only get better each time out of this box.
" Goodnight you moonlight ladies, rock -a- bye Sweet Baby James"…
out of *the* box
Hellish Thompson, whew. The enemy deserves 72 of her.
I cheered O'Reilly when he went after that 12-year-old from the Women's Right to Be Idiots group…she appeared on his show to attack him for his Helen Thomas snark. He said, Where were you skirts* when everyone was going after Sarah Palin?
*um, my word, not his.
I'm still smiling over "if the jokes were any lamer, they'd have to come out in a wheelchair". Yes, I, too wonder when Huckabee will get a little — um, well — is "better" the right word? It's just not a show I'm really going to spend too much time watching the way it is.
And Helen Thomas — maybe she doesn't have a place to retire to? No, that's not it. Maybe she's not old enough? No, that's really not it. Maybe she doesn't have a clue how much everyone wants her to retire? Ok, that's it.
4. Andrew Sullivan
Sorry about your loss Jeff, was Bill a comic? I knew your from the clubs as my friend is an Ice House emcee. I'm psyched to see you post here and have enjoyed seeing for a long time how a number of the top comedians are conservatives. (Though I don't care what someone's politics are if they're funny.)
I have a friend who, after it was too late, was told by another "friend" "Why did you marry her?" "I knew she was bad for you." His replied "Why didn't you tell me this before the wedding?" It was before I met him. A good friend is precious. My sympathies.
Huckabee has been on for a couple months now and you’re just now tuning in?
He's a great talk show host. His show is based on important news topics of the day and offers a refreshing view point that isn’t as pointed as your own. In fact this is my first experience reading you. I’ll be as honest as you friend once was. I like Huckabee better. I'm sure that given the opportunity he would give you a much better review than I! I guess being a man of god gives him a much better prospective than most of us.
Mental note to self…..skip Jeff Jena’s postings.
I dunno, there is something about Huck that I can't quite embrace. His band sounds like they just returned from the Red Roof Inn in Muncie, but as a bass player, I must give him some credit for effort. When he was on Red Eye the other week, he did have a good sense of humor, and bantered with the boys as best he could. I'll give him that too. Maybe GG & crew crew ought to write his monologue, but I don't think even pit humor can detour from the Andy Griffith on Prozac approach. A budget might help too.
I like Huckabee right where he is. He's another "conservative" in the vein of George Bush which is to say: big spender, big government, and not truly conservative at all. I understand that he feels he ought to use government to advance God's work, but the end result would not be too much different than what BO is doing now. It would end up being a drastic expansion of government spending at tax payer expense.
I like Huck well enough and his heart is in the right place which would make the disappearance of our freedoms go down easier for the Right, but loss of freedom is still loss of freedom. Thanks but no thanks.
1. Mike Huckabee is fine where he is. He'll NEVER win an election nationally. And I like him. He needs a lot of time to get better.
2. Brett Favre… meh? I'd come back too if I could make another $10 million
3. Helen Thomas… all of Helen's friends died in the Black Death of 1348.
Let's keep this list going:
4. Andrew Sullivan (posted by OSweet)
5. Joe the Plumber
Over the years I've tried to tell friends, as tactfully as possible, when they might need to reconsider something and I've always had bad luck with that. It's like people have an I can't handle the truth mentality when it comes to hearing some brutal honesty. I had a girlfriend who was fooling around on her fiance two weeks before getting married and she was offended when I said you don't have to get married you know, as if I was the bad guy in this scenario. Needless to say she was divorced within six months. But I did try.
I Love Helen Thomas! , , , now Helen will you promise not to slobber on me?
I'm staying nice to this lady (in a whisper) , , bridge troll; you telling me she couldn't kill someone, and not get off with an insanity defense? Good Lord! she makes the late Betty Davis look like mother Teresa.
I like Mike! But hey smell the java this show is AWFUL!!! As I said in my post I watched the first week to see him because I share a lot of his views. Maybe you didn't read that part? As to important topics he was talking to three Miss' America and Rosie Perez about some underprivledged arts program wile congress was busy buying a mortgage for the next fifty years!
I know he was a preacher and I think he's a great guy, but an engaging TV host, Hummmmm
As for skipping my posting… isn't that what is great about America!
i like the huckabee show. he does it because it keeps him in the news and pays for the bills.
i doubt that he will run again in 2012. maybe 2016?
Huckabee's show is brutal. I'm up at 4:00 AM Sunday with nothing to do, and will find ANY excuse not to watch it. He didn't get taken seriously the last election because he was a former preacher. Now add failed talk show host to that resume…..how can anyone in their right mind (no pun intended) think he's going to run in 2012? I'm not the biggest Mitt Romney fan, but after Obama and the Dems bury us, the public is going to be looking to get away from lawyers in the White House and get someone with economic chops. I love Palin, but she has shown no sign that she's going to pull it together. Lock her in a room with Mark Steyn and Jonah Goldberg for a few months and we'll talk.
Jindahl has no interest in 2012. He's too young and doesn't have a high enough profile. The only way Obama gets beaten is if he fails, in which case a younger (seemingly less experienced) candidate is going nowhere. Personally, I'm rooting for the Religious Right to get it's head of it's collective posteriors and let us (listen to me….I'm not even a Republican) nominate Rudy, but I'm not holding my breath.
Black Death? I thought her friends died in Mordor?
The only reason she's hung on this long is the ring. Don't give it to Frodo, Helen!
I think Helen's first question was to President Washington. Time for a desk job or retirement I think.
PS-when is Jimmy Carter going to settle down and shut up?
I agree about Huckabee. His is one of the few shows on FOX I do NOT watch There is something odd about the guy.. Whatever happended to Mitt Romney??.. a REAL conservative, .. unfortunately ALSO a MORMON. I'm afraid you would not believe how many Christians despise Mormons as a CULT!!
Andrew, My God you were thinking what I was thinking about Helen Thomas. She's been dead for years. If you want to see Helen in her younger days go to WOODtv in Grand Rapids, Mich. Her Niece is on the evening news broadcast. She is uglier that Helen is in old age.
I like Mike Huckabee, but I think they need some new producers for his show. The guests are lame, and the stand-up bit they do at the beginning of the show makes me cringe. Mike isn't edgy, and he isn't a comic, but he could take his "great guy" schtick and be the conservative Oprah! Perhaps it's his time slot on FOX News – you can't get really good guests with a crummy time slot.
I like Huckabee's show. It's kind of a talking head's version of Hee-Haw. It's not for everyone (especially those waiting for someone to fuse conservative ideology with urbane hipsterism), but when you consider that he only needs a few hundred thousand viewers to win his time slot, he'll be fine. The show already has a strong word of mouth buzz among evangelical types.
As a almost life long New Yorker, and a life long Jets fans, I would like to apologize to Brent Farve, the Packers, the city of Green Bay. The Jets have managed to even make Brent Farve look bad.
Re Huckabee's show – I think they just need to rejigger it. Why FOXNEWS keeps trying live audience chat shows is beyond me. They do not work. Plus, the host has more interesting things to say than a lot of the guests. If I were Queen (outside my existing realm) I would do something similar to quasi-Zogby's show on another channel. He does an hour long show on one or two topics. Huck should have knowledgeable folks on that are not eyerollingly hackish strategists, but people who know the subject thoroughly and have great passion. They have a longish talk on the subject instead of the regular news format of "excite me but never get me all the way there" 1 minute makeout sessions with a bunch of airheaded polifloozies. That format would be interesting.
I hope you're correct. Neither Sarah Palin (a joke everywhere in the country except to Huckabee/Jindal fans) nor Jindal will ever win a presidential election in this country.
And… Jeffrey, I am sorry for your loss of a good friend. Truth delivered with compassion is a gift. You shoul consider a small framed picture of him with the caption "What would Bill say about this?" and put it on your desk. I have one of my friend (who died 16 years ago in a boating accident). It is a pic of her with her hand on her hip looking amused, but impatient and below it sez "Really Shannan?" It keeps me right and also from wearing jeans that smoosh my butt flat.
Ack! My eyes! They burn!
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