NEW YORK—Well it was a rough weekend for the living. As the Internet continued grieving Friday’s death of Christopher Hitchens, it lost yet another one of its beloved icons last night, as Dear Leader Kim Jong-il succumbed to a heart attack that was deftly spun by his handlers as a case of “train fatigue.” Let all those jerks who use their mobiles in the quiet car be on notice: your intransigence is deadly.
Um, so this is the bro who’s succeeding him: “In August 1998, as famine reached a terrible climax in North Korea, the destitute Asian nation enrolled a shy teenager in a Swiss state school. He arrived with a fake name, a collection of genuine, top-of-the-line Nike sneakers and a passion for American basketball.”
Meanwhile, a man who left behind neither a calamitously reckless oeuvre excused and exalted by enthusiastic apologists for its fashionable atheism and “rapier wit” or a popular Tumblr blog chronicling him looking at things also passed away this weekend, though you’d have been hard pressed to find much mourning on the internet for Vaclav Havel.
Elsewhere, the last U.S. military convoy exited Iraq over the weekend, and Spencer Ackerman noted the poignancy of watching the war’s close from an aerial drone’s video feed. Not to be missed: the Washington Post profiled the last US fatality of the war, Army Specialist David Hickman, hauntingly invoking John Kerry’s words from forty years ago: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
The Times profiles Mitt Romney’s really truly extravagant wealth today in a lengthy exposé of the cushy retirement deal he struck with Bain. This should all play very well with the plan Paul Begala laid out in an interview with Greg Sargent to go after Romney as “as a symbol of the predatory, unfettered capitalism that landed us in our economic crisis.”
Oh, so the payroll tax cut is dead again, in what TPM’s Brian Beutler is calling “the make-or-break moment for Boehner’s speakership that everyone expected all year.” We couldn’t help but laugh during yesterday’s Giants game—both at our home team’s second loss this year to the lesser Redskins and also at ExxonMobil’s timely reintroduction of its commercial extolling the virtues of tar sands.
Nothing makes sense in Iowa anymore, where Ron Paul has now taken the lead according to Public Policy Polling. Gingrich has plunged thirteen points in the head-to-head and 32 points in favorability. Ron Paul, the last man standing among the not-Mitt candidates, must really be resonating in Iowa what with his courageous pledge to restore everyone’s right to drink unpasteurized milk. Which… sure?
This is all a very welcome development, we should all, becuase for the love of god if we have to hear Newt Gingrich compare himself to Abraham Lincoln one more time we’re going to subpoena some Supreme Court justices ourselves just to go revoke Newt’s First Amendment protections.
Speaking of Iowa, do read this Nation piece from Ben Adler, a good reminder of how fundamentally anti-democratic these celebrated First In The Nation Caucuses really are.
And we leave you today with this: a wonderful new way to lose all your money! [READ MORE AT THE GIFZETTE.]
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Newt never seems to compare himself to Abraham Lincoln when speaking about the theatre…
Xmas present for Newt: Gift card to Fandango®?
That's because Newt's never been to the theatre. By the way, Matt, do we count the Salamander in Chief among the living or the dead?
He's been dead on the inside for decades.
Vaclav Havel, Christopher Hitchens, and Kim Jong-Il walk into a bar…
They all die. The end.
Hey Buddy, why the rong face?
Kim Jong Il–
Il? I thought he was dead!
Whatever happens, Kim will definitely get stuck with the tab.
,,,and while Vaclav gave him a run for his money, Hitch was the last man standing, and a good time was had by all, except Kim, who passed out after the second shot…
"Vaclav Havel, Christopher Hitchens, and Kim Jong-Il walk into a bar… "
Havel and Hitchens bump their foreheads, but Kim ducks under it.
Because he's short, get it?
Ya get it, huh?
Hello? Is this thing on?
Havel screams and screams and screams. No amount of alcohol would enable him to spend eternity with these two.
…ouch!
I say we send Newt to replace Dear Leader. (He'd only be marginally worse than Kim Jong Il.) — the US's xmas gift to North Korea, and to America!
You know, both Newt and Kim and jowly, horrible, little men and I've never seen them in the same room together.
"I say we send Newt to replace Dear Leader."
Thereby improving BOTH countries.
Santorum cries at getting passed over for the chance to be not-Romney again.
I'm waiting for the lamestream media to declare Romney "the front-runner, after that other guy."
Newts chances of getting the nomination are as dead as a democrats spine. No a democrates balls, no a democrats…..you know what I mean. And I hope Kim rots in hell.
Well piss on you, too.
WTF? Translation?
Sorry, I didn't mean to be so cryptic. What I was trying to say is that the dems have turned into spineless pussies and Kim jong il should rot in hell.
I call dibs on L'il Kim's A.M.C. Pacer!
Best mental picture ever!
" Gingrich has plunged thirteen points in the head-to-head and 32 points in favorability. "
That's the downside of retail political campaigning. Ole Newt can only debate and pontificate on the tvs for so long.
The voters finally get to meet the guy and the universal response is "Yuck!"
The way the GOP poll numbers swing back and forth, first one, then another candidate way ahead, then falling back to earth, its like an increasing oscillation, as happens when a system starts to fail. The wheels are about to come off the clown car, in other words, and if its going to be a case of musical clowns, with the nominee being whichever one happens to be in the driver's seat when the wheels come off, it could well be Ron Paultard himself. I for one welcome our new dirigible overlord.
To be quite honest, after Michele Bachmann's victory in the Iowa Straw Poll, I almost hope that Ron Paul wins the Caucuses. Maybe then, the Republiklan and Democratic Establishments will rethink this whole issue of allowing Iowa to continue it's First In The Nation status.
This is good news for Jon Huntsman. He should top the polls by mid-January at this rate.
Then he'll crash. Then what??????????
Palin emerging out of the fire & brimstone, cackling as she releases her bats.
"Fly! Fly!"
I like to imagine Michele Bachmann as the Dorothy in this scenario.
“In August 1998, as famine reached a terrible climax in North Korea, the destitute Asian nation enrolled a shy teenager in a Swiss state school. He arrived with a fake name, a collection of genuine, top-of-the-line Nike sneakers and a passion for American basketball.”
Mars Blackmon?
Don't know. I'm still trying to reconcile "terrible famine" with "private school in Switzerland" and "collection of top-of-the-line Nike sneakers".
Count me, (and my liver), as one of the 70% that are already up to here with Republicans and their chicanery. This is the most extreme, embarrassing "nomination" in history. And the fact that the media are taking these assclowns seriously, (I mean, who ELSE would you put on the Sunday shows without them?), speaks volumes about where the fault of all this fucking nonsense lies.
Our local Republican scandal: Female and married Republican party leady in the congress named Amy Koch (no kidding) ran an anti gay and family values crusade and likes her boy toys
.http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/amy-koch-resigns-from-mn-senate-amid-scandal.html
Morals, and taxes, are for little people.
MG, bad link. I was in St. Paul Saturday night, saw the gigantic news scroll across the top of a building (must be MPR) "Amy Koch….inappropriate…" A new version of the walk of shame.
http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/amy-koch-resigns... ml
Try this.
Boy toy? Eliot Spitzer wannabe, more like.
Ha!
Someone called him "hunky"!
Although Amy Koch is not what you would babe material.
From the picture, she's a lot of woman.
The usually-quotable Marty Seifert strikes again: "Former gubernatorial candidate and House Rep. Marty Seifert of Marshall on Sunday called the news about Koch, the state's first female majority leader, "shocking and debilitating," and said no one was more surprised to hear about it than he was.
"To discover that Amy was involved in some sort of scandal – finding that out is like finding out that Smoky the Bear is an arsonist," Seifert said."
Hey, if Iowa can recall their Supreme Court Justices for passing marriage for the gheys, can we recall Scalia, Thomas and C/J Roberts for their Sodomy of America?
Who you screw privately can be made illegal. Who SCOTUS can screw publicly is perfectly legal.
Kim can be a Boys name and a Girls name.
Similarly, Newt can be a slimy amphibian with a tiny brain, or…
um…
New Exxon commercial: Tar sands are just where baby dinosaurs went to the beach!
Václav Havel and Little Kim heading off to another reality — you can't get much more contrast than that pair.
I read that as "…and Lil Kim heading off to another reality…" at first. Either way, it's still quite a contrast.
I suspect 2012 will go down in Republican history for the "Newt wipe".
You know, the one where you shake some guy's sweaty, slick hand and surreptitiously reach around to your jeans butt to wipe dry?
Or do like shrub did in Haiti, wipe it on Clinton instead?
It could be worse. You could be shaking hands with Gov. Rick after he thrust his used condom into his pocket.
Cannot unsee…
Sarah Palin asks, "Was Kim from the good Korea or the bad Korea?"
"… 'cuz I used to watch him walk around on his balcony."
The bad Korea is where that awful book that the Muslins read was written, according to Palin.
"And which one is the bad one? The East Korea or the West one?"
The one that shot down John McCain.
Gawd, don't make me do it. For the love of…don't…make…me…oh, all of them, Katie.
**explodes**
Nothing makes sense in Iowa anymore,
Slipknot does relatively
Is this Kim the one that married hat Humphries guy? Or was the Kloe?
"Not to be missed: the Washington Post profiled the last US fatality of the war, Army Specialist David Hickman, hauntingly invoking John Kerry’s words from forty years ago: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
Too bad they didn't think of the first fatality in the war they helped drum up with equal poignancy. They were too busy waving flags and becoming "embedded" to notice.
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
That's a rhetorical question right? Because we know the answer. Make up some obviously false crap about WMD and say "smoking gun / mushroom cloud" a lot and claim that Saddam is barring the inspectors when he actually is cooperating fully and leak the names of CIA agents whose spouses put a spotlight on your bullshit production facilities and then just sit back while the loyal typists of the Washington Post (not to forget the resourceful stenographers of the New York Times) crank the story to 11 and even "discover" some transparently false alarmist tripe of their own, in their tireless effort to show that they are just like the cool kids, to keep pulling in those invitations to the exclusive dinner parties and weekends at Chesapeake Bay estates. ["Smirk - you don't see those losers at The Nation getting this kind of quality access to sources, do you? And wait till you hear what Rumsfeld told me on David Koch's yacht last week..."]
I assume that is what the Post was getting at. Gotta give them credit, that's remarkably self-aware of them.
*sigh*
Maybe I'm getting old and cynical, but all wars begin pretty much the same way and end pretty much the same way, don't they?
American ones. The Spanish-American war was a Media job too.
*no snark*
Not to mention the lingering effects that most wars leave behind that usually are causes of future wars.
I saw a story, last night, that profiled the first to die, I think. It was on CBS evening news.
Asking a man to be the first man to die for a mistake is pretty damn awful too. I wish more of our leaders thought so.
Note:Remove Kim IL from contacts list.,and de-friend on Face book.
Americans won't vote in elections, but they will gamble money on elections. Sounds about right.
Just a short step to the futures market replacing the election. Money talks…
… and we is all fucked.
I'm So Ronery….
"I rork rearry hard to stay nice and fit
But none of da women seem to give a shit
When I rure da world, maybe dey'll notice meeee
Until den..
I'll just be ronery
Sigh.. a rittle ronery
Poor ritter me.."
~K.J-I.
… ashes ashes we all fall down… Kim and Newt, it couldn't happen to nicer guys.
Damn, one fewer Oompa Loompa….
A long long time ago
I can still remember how
Eating used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
But they'd be full of lead and bleeding for a while
But the weather made me shiver
With every execution I'd order
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
**The day Kim Jong Il died**
So
Bye, bye Mr NK crazy guy
Drove my T-62 to the DMZ but the fuel tank was dry
Them generals were drinking Cognac 'n Rye
Singin' this'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die
making my day there, my friend. May I quote you?
No problem.
*polite golf clap*
Nicely played, sir.
Martini?
…wipes tear away….
In this situation, the original lyrics fit almost better.
"No angel born in hell can break that Satan's spell.
As the flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite I saw Satan laughing with delight… "
Burn in hell, Kim Jong Il, tormented and tortured the way you tormented and tortured your own people.
Sounds like Kim Jong-Il would make a fine Republiklan. Force your people to live in abject poverty and near starvation, and they call you Dear Leader.
Add the part about having judges arrested, and he'd be 3 for 3.
I like the way the Newt thinks but he needs a tax plan. Perhaps 6 6 6 ?
Newt's Tax plan? Same as all GOP members stick it to the Middle class.Protect the wealthy,and rape the environment.While washing down dinner with the tears of freshly squeezed Panda's.
Every historian needs a tax plan … to hide their gains from the … vastly profitable … field of history.
The private equity approach may be right for the US: buy it out with debt, lay everybody off, sell the assets, repay the debt and keep the profits. The Pentagon seems ripe for a takeover.
I see the commercial uses the focus-group approved "oil sands", rather than the expression I learned in elementary school geography – and my parents learned before me – "Athabasca Tar Sands". I can't tell you how depressing it is when I return to the True North Strong and Free and anyone under the age of thirty looks at me blankly when I say "tar sands" and then completely without guile or irony continue: "Oh, you mean the oil sands".
[For American ears - this is like leaving your country for a few years and then coming back to find everyone calling the La Brea Tar Pits the "La Brea Oil Pits".]
I really wish Orwell wouldn't turn out to be a prophet so often. I expect we'll be calling them the "Athabasca Fuel for Ambulances and Medical Helicopters Reserves" any day now.
"I expect we'll be calling them the "Athabasca Fuel for Ambulances and Medical Helicopters Reserves" any day now."
"Athabasca Corporate Personhood, Job Creation, and Freedom Beach" has a nice ring to it.
I can not even begin to tell you what an earful I get from Canadians (particularly of the Prairie Provinces), when I refer to them as "tar sands" or say anything negative about this ridiculously dirty energy. I've been shocked by the response, as we tend to think of Canadians as more environmentally friendly, but you start talking about a major part of their economy, now, and all you get is pro-business talking points and vitriol about how ignorant you are not to know about the "advances that have been made." It's kind of like the coal states down here and their "clean coal" bullshit talking points you get.
I think the reason why we haven't attacked North Korea is because they are all Black belts in Tai Kwon Do, Karate, Kung Fu and maybe some of the other fighting styles.
Another thing that died recently (though I can't point to the exact time of death) – The 'Merikan Dream.
January 20, 1981.
Yeah – I'm sure that was when the shot was fired, but the patient survived for a few years before finally succumbing in the last few years. It was a slow, painful death.
It was in a coma but nobody was praying for it like they prayed for Terri Schiavo who had a miraculous full recovery. Oh wait…
The RNC released a statement demanding that the Bush Administration be given proper credit for Il's death.
Also, according to same statement it was Clinton who helped Kim come to power in the first place.
And Obama's appeasement that kept him alive this long.
Maybe there will be a smooth and unremarkable transition of autocratic power to the Littlest Kim. Maybe the regime will collapse ala Mubarak's. Or maybe the army will seize control from an ineffectual heir and spark a civil war that ends with The Bomb used on Seoul or Tokyo.
Where's the gin?
You can have the half liter I have left –I don't think I can finish it all today.
Wait! He's dead? I didn't even know he was Il!
*rimshot*
Keith Olbermann tweeted this morning that Kim Jong Il was downgraded to Kim Jong Dead. He also said that Trump is going to run for President of North Korea.
Has Sarah tweeted her sorrow for our dearly departed ally?
Has she tweeted that the death of that dictator Vaclav Havel was a victory for democracy & the spreading of American freedoms?
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
Rummy libel!!!!
The only thing too liberal about Wonkette is the way it uses the title "editor".
Are you complaining about "becuase" in the eighth paragraph? If so, I'd like to point out that it was ironic. Or maybe aluminatic. Either way, I am sure the editor meant to do that, so stop picking on him also too.
☑ Kim Jong Il ☑ Khaddafi ☑ Osama Bin Laden ☑ Saddam Hussein ☐ Microsoft "Clippy" Mascot.
So close!
No need
How perfect is it that the voice of Clippy was provided by Gilbert Gottfried?
Dear Leader is dead! Long live Dear Leader!
But can the new Kim "look at things" with the focus and determination that the Dear Leader brought? This will be the hot topic on the morning Pyongyang am radio talk shows…After the 30 minutes of blaring trumpets and patriotic songs.
These photos of the youngest son – dear God, is anything more likely to bring on nuclear devastation – they look like the little fat boy hallucinations of R. Crumb….
You know who else died of "train fatigue?"
Casey Jones?
Benito Mussolini?
Marilyn Chambers?
Thomas the Tank Engine?
Amtrak?
You may be familiar with Kim Jong Un's recent work with Pixar: http://imgur.com/gallery/RLK1z
George W. Bush gets a late-game assist from the big man upstairs in his ongoing struggle against the Axis of Evil.
That's just brilliant.
"a collection of genuine, top-of-the-line Nike sneakers"
Although, since those are made in Korean sweatshops by five-year-olds, it's probably not as impressive as it would be here.
So no one's commenting about how Kim Jong Il suddenly dies on a miliary run train just before the announcement of a US aid deal that would send international nuclear inspectors to N Korea? C'mon conspiracy theorists, show your stuff!
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,210...
You don't expect the North Koreans to actually admit that they let a Predator drone sneak in, do you?
New theory about Kim Jong Il's death.
"I raunch a cucumbel in youl genelar dilection! This my Type-O-Dong missire! Get it? Type-O-Dong! Hahah! You dead."
Didn't we already try that with Newty?
Jeez, all these people dying right and left; and I don't feel so good myself right now…..
Elsewhere, Vaclav Havel dies …
I got this picture in my head that "the nasty act" between these two would look something like a slightly hairy hard boiled egg sitting in a large bowl of cottage cheese.
Now you've put me off dinner for this evening.
That would make Marcus a true "friend of Dorothy".
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