Bunny Ears And Real Americans

by hilzoy

Bill Sali, one of my favorite nutty Congresspeople, makes the news again:

"Congressman Bill Sali and his campaign staff disrupted a NewsChannel 7 reporter and a representative for his opponent during an interview Tuesday in Downtown Boise.

KTVB reporter Ysabel Bilbao was interviewing Walt Minnick's campaign director John Foster Wednesday afternoon. During the interview, someone loudly yelled and was laughing during the interview at the Grove plaza.

Bilbao and Foster initially ignored the intrusion, but quickly noticed the source of the heckling -- Sali and members of his staff. (...)

Foster said he saw Sali making faces at him and holding up "bunny ears.""

Bill Sali is the Republican Congressman from Idaho who once said:

"Forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is crude oil," he said. Going after that, he said, "could put Idaho in the oil business for the first time."

Crude oil. From trees. Take that, Saudi Arabia!

He's also personally charming:

"His confrontational style alienates even fellow Republican legislators. During the 2006 session, he angered Democrats so much during a debate about abortion that they walked out. Afterward, Newcomb said: "That idiot (Sali) is just an absolute idiot. He doesn't have one ounce of empathy in his whole fricking body. And you can put that in the paper."(...) But that isn't all. When Republican Congressman Mike Simpson was speaker of the Idaho House, he once threatened to throw Sali out of a window in the state Capitol."

Still, I'll take bunny ears and arboreal crude over Rep. Robin Hayes' claim that "liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God."

I wonder: when, exactly, did I become a synthetic American?

Comments

[Anarch]

Since you started blogging. Weird, isn't it?

[hilzoy]

I wonder if being a synthetic American gives me super powers? And if so, which?

[david kilmer]

I thought you were a synthetic a priori American ;).

[Mike Schilling]

Ysabel Bilbao

Love it. Even better if she called herself just "Belle Bilbao".

[Phoebe]

The Daily Show was all over this theme tonight. Insanely, fabulously on it.

[aimai]

Wow, quite an endorsement, by the paper I mean. "flame throwing republican" really has become radioactive as a term. Used to be a badge of honor.

aimai

[cleek]

I wonder: when, exactly, did I become a synthetic American?

replicant! replicant!

[Ugh]

He doesn't have one ounce of empathy in his whole fricking body.

Cheney, Bush, Addington, etc.

[bobbyp]

Whatever happened to the population that once elected Frank Church to the Senate?

[wonkie]

The sadthing is tht he's up on the [o;;s and likely to win.

Well I'm going to enjoy the political demise of Robin Hayes and Bachmann is definately in danger.

[russell]

Told about Obama’s proposal, she answered, “I don’t give a shit. I will never vote for a black man.”

So says the lovely America Blanca, a name you could not make up in a million years, in the last story hilzoy links to.

Obama's candidacy is bringing all of racism latent in American culture right back up to the surface again. It's disturbing, but more and more I think of it as a kind of laudable pus.

Personally, I'd rather have it out of the closet and right there on the table. It ain't pretty, but at least we know it for what it is.

Thanks -

[Jay C]

I wonder: when, exactly, did I become a synthetic American?

Just before Election Day: just like it happens every four years...

[joel hanes]

To be fair to the the odious Sali, pine tree rosin actually can be used in place of some petroleum derivatives, and of course one could make ethanol from the cellulose. However, that 40% sounds like a stretch to me.

[Eric Martin]

I wonder: when, exactly, did I become a synthetic American?

I can determine your status with my Voight-Kampff machine. I'm just going to ask you a few questions.

Hilzoy, you're in the desert, you see a tortoise lying on its back, struggling, and you're not helping -- why is that?...

[hairshirthedonist]

I wonder if being a synthetic American gives me super powers? And if so, which?

The ability to consume a whole latte in a single sip;

The ability to leap an Ivory Tower in a single bound;

The ability to drive a Volvo blind-folded and with no hands while eating arugula with chop sticks;

The ability to release a continuous stream of sesquipedalian, elitist, intellectual, fancy-pants mumbo jumbo at will

and the ability to redistribute wealth and appease at the same time.

[noen]

Bunny ears? Like in Gummo?

[wj]

If only they still taught spelling in the schools!

Obviously what Rep. Hayes meant was not "real Americans" but "reel Americans," i.e. those who are so intoxicated (by what, one can only speculate) that they stagger. Not to mention being unable to think coherently.

And the opposite of "reel Americans" would obviously be "upright and coherent Americans." Can we live with being in that classification? I think so.

[Halteclere]

"Forty percent of the mass of every tree in the forest is crude oil," would be difficult to get out of a tree, especially considering that 40% to 45% of the weight of a living tree is water.

Maybe he meant 40% of the mass of dried trees. Which means that, with all the studs, joists, rafters, etc. in my house, I'm living in an oil well!

[ajay]

Hilzoy, you're in the desert, you see a tortoise lying on its back, struggling, and you're not helping -- why is that?...

(writing) Because -- she -- is -- also -- a -- tortoise.

[TJ]

Does hilzoy actually look like Sean Young? Or Daryl Hannah?

[Eric Martin]

I dunno but I sure do look like young Harrison Ford. Honest.

[Sara Anderson]

I keep waiting for Colbert to pounce on this district we all better know while we've still got Sali to kick around.

[Gary Farber]

All politicians should be tested, Eric, and some have.

[Eric Martin]

Gary, that was indeeed 5 out of 5 on the humor scale.

[hairshirthedonist]

TW: You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?
TA: I’d think this was Blade Runner. That’s my reaction.

Way to go, Tom. Not bad for a Republican.

[LFC]

Still, I'll take bunny ears and arboreal crude over Rep. Robin Hayes' claim that "liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God."

Can somebody answer a question for me? If these are "real Americans that work and achieve...", then how come the states where they are prevalent all seem to take in more federal tax dollars than they produce?

Seems to me that these states just brimming with "real Americans" are actually the country's welfare cases. But man, do they have opinions on how the tax revenues produced by the "fake Americans" ought to be spent.