© AP/Robin Platzer/AP

While liberals Maddow and Stewart bicker, W. stands firm on pro -book-buying stance

Mr. wOw has had big headaches recently. So big he has not been able to wrap his head around certain current events. 

Bad movies I’ve caught on cable haven’t helped.  I enjoy a good bad movie – “Showgirls,” “Valley of the Dolls,” or “Secret Ceremony.” But sitting through crap like “The Box” and “The Lovely Bones” just about did me in. “The Box” was simply sadistic. The low point for Cameron Diaz. “The Lovely Bones” left me screaming with frustration and with a new loathing of CGI. (I understand The Lovely Bones book was much better.)

So it was with a certain weary wariness that I approached Rachel Maddow’s interview with Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly’s sit-down with former President George W. Bush. However, I found myself revived.

Maddow, one of TV’s most intelligent, reasonable women, attempted to put Stewart to the test of his liberalism. Her point seemed to be that Stewart’s attacks on the Left were not as valid as his attacks on the Right. Stewart, out from behind his scripts, was sincere and super-serious but surprisingly inarticulate, hesitant. But I got his message. Both sides are crazy; both sides need to ramp it down; and despite the hysteria that occurs when either side wins big, the United States of America is not, not Germany in the 1930’s. We need to reconsider who and why we call people “evil.” Yes, even George W. Bush. Stewart believes the volatile rhetoric on both sides exists simply to end discussion. Nobody wants a discourse. Nobody. He also tried to convince Rachel that she and others of her cable-news ilk were the real influences, and that he was “not in the same game.” She insisted he was. And she didn’t think going on about “tea-baggers” (using the sexual slang for Tea Party advocates) was such a bad thing. Stewart said, “It was funny for one day.”

Rachel, rare for her, seemed on the defensive – more than a little irritated, antsy, and impatient at times. Stewart appeared to be rather melancholy.

Rachel said she still likes Jon Stewart, and appreciated him coming on – especially given that he had a stomach flu. It’s a sin to tell a lie, Rachel.

As for Mr. Bush and Mr. O’Reilly, I have to hand it to W – he was there as a man promoting a book. Just show him the money! As much as Bill wanted to get all medieval on Obama, W. really wouldn’t go there. On matters of policy, ideology, etc., he more or less said, “Read my book!” And he wouldn’t even say he was depressed about “the way the country is going,” as Bill put it. “I’m always optimistic about America,” said W. “Read my book!” Bush also referred to himself as “the retired guy,” and at one point, he deflected comments on the economy by stating, “You need to talk to somebody who really understands economy.”

I know my liberal friends will cast me out, but even while he reigned – influenced disastrously by Rove and Cheney, dragging us into two wars – I kind of liked W. as a personality. I found him attractive and, well – sexy. Now, I might not feel that way if I was water-boarded or if I was on Death Row in Texas while he ruled as governor of that state, but I’m only watching from the outside in. I dislike his mother, Barbara “Marie Antoinette” Bush, much more than I do her son. (After Hurricane Katrina, the poor black people were doing much better at the filthy, destroyed Astrodome.)

And whether or not his decisions were correct, you have to hand it to a man who calls himself “The Decider.”

His performance with O’Reilly was pretty classy in my book.  

I’ve grown tired of Jimmy Carter’s whining and bitching and blaming.