littlejohn

this blog serves a number of purposes for me – sometimes it is a way for me to rant, sometimes it is just an online diary where i can just doodle the things that have been happening in my life, other times it is a place for me to be funny (ok so far i haven’t done that…), and then there are times like this when i read the things best left untouched by moral people.
yes i read the sun and i read the richard littlejohn column, and boy does it suck. – but dear reader i did it for you.
i would give you the link to the article but the sun’s website does not allow for you to read the articles without subscribing, bah humbug.
so lets set the picture – it was tuesday evening i had just been to an art show, stopped off at my local coffee shop and just picked up a couple of papers that were lying around. the sun isn’t a paper i would normally read but there it was. i flicked through the pages and came across the littlejohn column. richard littlejohn is one of those right wing journalists who thinks bigoted rants pass for reasoned opinion – he is the uk’s version of rush limbaugh. littlejohn plays the role of the "lad" who has done good and isn’t afraid to speak out against the system – he sees himself as the voice of the everyman. in reality working for the murdoch press he is part of the system.
so what is it that has irked littlejohn in this column? well he has decided that cherie blair has demonstrated a lack of political tact because she had her 50th birthday party on saturday 11th of september. this is bad because that happens to be the third anniversary of a great american tragedy. i suppose it is because cherie is married to tony blair, the uk’s prime minister, that this party she held was a great affront to littlejohn. by having this party cherie has told littlejohn that she is pretending that nothing has happened and nothing has changed in the world and that if we ignore the occurrence of 9/11 we can pretend it never happened.
(a slight digression here – i am not keen on cherie blair for several reasons 1] you get the feeling that she sees herself as part of a new political aristocracy, 2] that her position confers on her a range of privileges but there are none of the responsibilities that go with them, 3] she is symptomatic of what is bad about the new labour project, 4] that smile of hers scares me. whatever else i say about her she is woman of incredible intellect and in the images you see of her and tony together you get the feeling that they are genuinely happy to be together after all these years. so i suspect that cherie knows that we have been at war with afghanistan and iraq, and we are currently having less than successful occupations of both countries, i suspect she knows why we went to war in both countries- no not for oil and not because dubya told us to (stop being cynical) and that part of the reason was 9/11, and i also suspect that being a very clever woman who is the partner to tony blair i reckon that tony comes home from a hard day as pm and in between slagging off gordon brown and laughing at the whole of the tory party there is a good chance he discusses iraq with cherie… i could be wrong, but i think cherie is well aware of 9/11 and has been involved in some of the ways that the world has changed since then).
so far her crime is that cherie has gotten on with her life and has had a party for her birthday rather than doing something that acknowledges the anniversary of an american tragedy.
littlejohn doesn’t tell us what he was doing saturday – he doesn’t mention if he was at one of the many professional football games played on saturday, or maybe he had gone to see the professional rugby games that were played ? perhaps he was at international one-day cricket event that is taking place in the uk ? maybe he was watching the qualifying session for that weeks grand prix racing, or he was getting ready to watch the tennis from flushing meadows? or perhaps he was catching a play in the west end, or a movie, or…. as he doesn’t say i can only assume that he was in sackcloth and ashes flagellating himself so as to mark the anniversary of 9/11.
but if that was not enough of a crime cherie also has to suffer the slings and arrows of littlejohn’s prose because as a barrister she has pointed out that some of the inmates of camp gitmo (littlejohn refers to them as the tipton taliban) are being denied their basic human rights.
human rights for the islamo-fascists ? cries littlejohn, human rights for the mad mullahs he shouts, obviously she must be madder than a march hare.
now this particular attack on cherie comes after littlejohn says that the mad mullahs are trying to destroy our way of life. so you would have thought he would have been cherie as she defends an individuals human rights, the right to a fair trail, the right to a lawyer, hell even the right to know why you are being held captive…….. but no she is obviously a race traitor for what she is doing. i have to say that if we are defending the idea of "our way of life" but in doing so we are throwing away all the things that make "our way of life" worth defending then i think you have said that the terrorists have won, but to admit that (or even to realise that) would mean littlejohn couldn’t have his pop at cherie.
in her defence of the human rights of the captives of camp gitmo cherie is fighting for "our way of life" and she is also fighting to make sure that the state can only go so far in removing the freedoms we enjoy and have come to take for granted. anything less would be to admit defeat. however that is a world view that has shades of grey in it and that is not how littlejohn sees the world – in his world it is either black or white and so very simple.
and naturally in a stroke of genius that even karl rove would have to admire this pop at cherie for a party gets turned into a warning. oh yes there is going to be a big terrorist strike between now and november (just before the american elections). so far the cia, fbi, mi6 and any number of spookdoms finest have protected us all. so they have done a fine job of it for the last 3 years but just before the election littlejohn says he has been given information that there will be this attack… how unfortunate for the various agencies to fumble the ball just in time for it to help bush get elected. wow it’s almost like someone was cynically planning these things.
littlejohn talks more bollocks than is humanly possible. he stirs hatred and fear where there should be none, what is worse he is given a prominent platform from which to do. if there is an attack on "our way of life" it is that fat bastards like littlejohn are allowed to spout off.