Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 9

• Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O'Reilly
• FOX "News" announces new spinoff: The FOX Benghazi™ Shopping Channel!
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza


In Crackpot Utopia it was still the Year of Benghazi -- see No. 2.

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O'Reilly

When I thought about who deserved this award, there were more than a few candidates screaming out the windows of the Crackpot Asylum. But one truly bizarre person has built a reputation that is so synonymous with the words "pompous" and "blowhard" that there can really be only one true champeen!



The following pearls from the worm-eaten mind of Bill-O are not just breathtaking in their Outer Limits trans-dimensional scope of irony; they are as breathtaking as what would happen if you were sitting in a spaceship orbiting Pluto and suddenly all the windows blew open and in an instant all the air, the contents of the ship, and you were sucked out into the vast vacuum of ice-cold space.

Heeeerre's Bill-O!

"When you hear something on a partisan-driven program, do not believe it!"

And, mere seconds later:

"Distortions are how some people make a living."

Hmmm, good to know, Bill-O! Good to know!

It's worth noting that O'Reilly actually, really cut short his August vacation to bless us with these pearls of his unique genius. It seems he got paranoid and felt the need to rush back and defend himself against people he calls "race hustlers" (no, he wasn't looking in the mirror, although it's reasonable of you to assume that he was), by issuing a diatribe about people who dare to criticize republican icon Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot an unarmed suspect Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.

Bill-O seems to think that having bravely acknowledged that Michael Brown shouldn't be dead offsets the rest of the nonsense he's spewed about Ferguson. But then, he doesn't have to listen to himself.


"My pal Jon Stewart, basically a comedian, but he's taken seriously by some of his fanatical followers. . . . Stewart mocked me for coming back from vacation. . . . Stewart distorts the [Ferguson] issue, and he has been known to do that. [Plays clips including one showing him saying, "What happened to Michael Brown should never happent to any American," and another saying, "If Michael Brown did something wrong, it doesn't mean that you wind up dead in the street."] So here is the Factor Tip of the Day: When you hear something on a partisan-driven program, do not believe it. And that includes the Net! Don't believe this stuff! Distortions are how some people make a living. Stewart is going for the laugh. He doesn't reallycare if it's true or not. And his audience, watching me, they don't know. Yuk-yuk-yuk. Come on!" (Watch the clip here.)


2. FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!



Watching FOX "News" during the last year -- in fact, over the last two years, has been like watching a blinding bright yellow flashing road sign, a sign that screams "Benghazi!," flashing it over and over again. Don't worry, when you pass the first one, there'll be another, even bigger flashing Benghazi! sign every 50 yards. Benghazi. Benghazi. Benghazi! Benghazi! After all, the old sign that said "Birth Certificate!" burned out.

It got so bad that in just a two-week period in June, FOX devoted an insane 225 segments to what will go down in history as "The Great Republican Benghazi Hoax." For the FOX asylum, Benghazi is some sort of manifestation of Tourette's syndrome.

Then, a few weeks ago, the report from the republican-led congressional investigation of the Benghazi tragedy came out. After spending millions and millions of our precious taxpayer dollars that Congress could have been put to so much better use, it turned out that, as all non-crackpots knew, there was no scandal. There was no conspiracy. There was no cover-up.



The reaction from Fox? Silence. It was almost like FOX simply went off the air.

Alas, it was not to be. It took all of about three days, but they got their wind back. The republican committee that issued the report had dumped it out after 5:00 on a Friday afternoon in a classic news dump at the time of week when they thought no one would notice, and much of the media, including the so-called liberal media, only lightly mentioned the findings. But on FOX, nothing at all, not even on their Sunday "news" shows.

Not to worry, FOX has regrouped, and they have hopes for a brand-new republican-crackpot committee that will also spend more of our hard-earned money investigating Benghazi. What's that about the definition of insanity? You know, the one about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

FOX is all in. They already pushed all of their chips on Benghazi to the middle of the table a year ago. Now they've taken off all their clothing and added it to the pile. Damn, the idea of seeing a nude Sean Hannity or Neil Cavuto sitting at the poker table is not a pretty sight. ‘Scuse me a minute, I have to go barf.

OK, I'm back. What is it with Benghazi for Republicans? Benghazi might as well be Walter White's blue crystal meth to these wackos. They just can't get enough of it. They constantly need more, more, more! They look under every pillow and rock for what has become the Loch Ness Monster of scandals. Benghazi has become a myth that has fervent bug-eyed believers. The more they chant the word, the more they believe. You could tell these people that the sky is blue and they will scream that it is green.

Recently FOX "News," in their desperation to put literally anybody in front of the camera who will back their nihilistic insanity, called upon Duck Dynasty crackpot Phil Robertson as an expert on foreign policy for their Sean Hannity program. His mission was apparently to convince viewers that "Benghazi is real, my friends." Well, if the Duck Commander says it, it must be so. Hey, that's even better than Krauthammer.

Then there was Hercules, aka Kevin Sorbo, as an expert on Benghazi for FOX's Outnumbered show. (Even the show name reflects the paranoia that is integral to the republican mindset.) In discussing the NFL's very real domestic abuse horrors, Sorbo managed to draw a direct line from Benghazi to the NFL.

And he wasn't the first loon on FOX to do so! Lizzie Hasselbeck had beaten him to it on her miserable little slice of village-idiot theater called FOX and Friends, managing to draw some sort of line between Benghazi and the NFL's domestic-abuse scandal -- as, er, expressed in her Tweet:



It just goes to show that not everyone in Hollywood is a liberal commie pinko. Give it time and crazies like Sorbo will be on FOX connecting Pearl Harbor to Benghazi, complete with tales about Obama using a time machine to lead the Japanese attack. There will be claims of covered-up old black-and-white photos of him shaking hands with Admiral Yamamoto (who also went to Harvard, by the way -- say no more!) and bowing to the emperor.

If FOX keeps going in the direction they've been going, we will see, in time for the 2016 election, a completely made-up scandal based on people and places that don't even exist. Some building that has never been built, in a town that has only existed in republicanland, will be blown up and people that never existed will disappear. Maybe they can call it Roswell, but I think that's already been done. Submit your names for the town of republican myth-mongering now! You might want to get the Web domain name registered. Reaganville, anyone? That's the next step in republican lunacy. Rest assured, though, that it will all be some Democratic front-runner's fault.

The republican masterminds of the crypto-scandal of Benghazi have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in getting the gullible and the haters to believe. Why did they perpetrate this hoax? My guess is that the real Benghazi cover-up is that the Republicans don't just want to exploit the tragedy in order to politically damage President Obama and Hillary Clinton. They also want to divert attention from the fact that it was they who cut the dollars for the security of our embassies in the first place, and they certainly wouldn't want the media pointing that one out, now would they? If you take away embassy protection, bad things happen.

The way I see it, it's inevitable. FOX already has FOX Business, FOX Sports, and who-knows-what-else, all designed to fatten Rupert Murdoch's wallet so he can invest more money in backing China. So it's only natural that FOX "News" would spin off a FOX "All Benghazi, All The Time" channel: FOX Benghazi™! Your Benghazi Channel! They'll have Lizzie Hasselbeck and Megyn Kelly offering a full line of FOX Benghazi™ merchandise. I can see it now: T-shirts, handbags, socks, AR-15s, all emblazoned with some sort of FOX Benghazi™ logo, even sick little flag-draped FOX Benghazi™ coffins.


3. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza



It's bad enough that DiGiorno makes a virtually inedible product, which even New York City rats ignore when it's tossed out the window and into back alleys, half-finished, by slob citizens. And it's bad enough that said product contributes to the growing obesity problems of those who actually eat it.

Now, in the wake of the sad tale of footballer Ray Rice cold-cocking his then-fiancée-now-wife in an elevator, DiGiorno goes and comments on a twitter account, #WhyIStayed, which someone set up so battered women could explain why they stay with their abusers. Many of the reasons are poignant, even if they aren't quite enough for many of us to fully understand. Reasons offered often deal with things like staying so my unborn child will have a dad or because they believed that every time would be the last time, etc.

In a fine example of typical corporate arrogance, stupidity, and insensitivity, some genius at DiGiorno added what he or she saw as a perfectly reasonable reason to stay with the man who may, some day, kill you:



Is there no depth to which corporate a-holes will not sink in an attempt to separate us from our money and give us diabetes or colon cancer in return? DiGiorno later claimed they didn't know what the Twitter account was about, or even what the phrase "Why I Stayed" means.



I suppose if you live under a rock, it's possible.

DiGiorno's marketing goons may be the Mariana Trench of marketeers, but what should we expect in a world where the likes of Jamie Dimon and Mitt Romney roam free and a whole political party can make light of rape? It seems that it's only a matter of time before some fast food chain uses pictures of the starved prisoners of Auschwitz, saying if only they had our tacos, or pizza, or whatever.


TOMORROW IN PART 10: Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann and Kimberly Guilfoyle

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy

For listings and links, see Part 1 of this year's series.

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