Aug 20^th

I surfed the web just now looking for Mona Charen’s most recent column; she has a number of mini-columns that probably won’t hit our local paper but are interesting nonetheless. I noticed that she had some comments on Jon Stewart’s decision to call it a day; in short, she was delighted. Mona does not believe Jon Stewart added much of anything to our culture. She claims that he was just snarky. She goes on to write this, “But when you picture the typical Stewart viewer, you probably imagine a white hipster looking like the pajama boy from the Obama ads, right?” This quote demonstrates clearly that Mona can be snarky with the best of them. Mona doesn’t realize that Stewart’s snarkiness was usually hilarious; her snarkiness isn’t. He also had some instructive but devilishly embarrassing questions for political guests. This might be why Mona is so happy to see him leave.

I also trolled Fox News this afternoon and there was Gretchen Carlson with two guests discussing politics. Gretchen, like most female Fox anchors, is blonde and attractive, indeed Gretchen is a former Miss America; perhaps this credential was a help getting your own show on Fox.

The guests were explaining that there were some interesting shifts in the recent polls. First, even though he isn’t officially running, Joe Biden would beat any of the Republican candidates in Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. (This Quinnipiac Poll results infuriated the next Fox Anchor, who claimed the poll wasn’t worth “spit” because no one had yet taken a shot at Biden who wasn’t really running yet.)

Then the guests pointed out to Gretchen Carlson how well Bernie Sanders was doing and the huge crowds he was drawing. (Donald Trump said he had several thousand in his auditorium but the auditorium only holds 800. Donald is lying more like a politician every day.) Sanders is now even with Clinton in Iowa. This news caused a volcanic reaction form Ms. Carlson; she couldn’t believe it!

Bernie Sanders says that he is a socialist. Gretchen Carlson simply does not believe that in this great country of ours anyone could vote for a (Gasp) socialist (Gasp). That’s what she said and I heard her say it. She was incredulous that anyone would vote for an avowed socialist! I believe that Gretchen Carlson ranks socialists a full rung below child pornographers. She went on to say that people would be voting for the kind of government they had in Denmark, or Sweden, or Norway. It is obvious that Ms. Carlson has no idea how the government of Sweden, or any other of the other Nordic countries works. They do produce the happiest people anywhere. Iceland is close to the top of the “happiest list” and in Iceland you must select your baby’s name from a list approved by the government. Even that degree of government supervision doesn’t make for unhappy Icelanders. It would surely make for a very unhappy Gretchen Carlson.