Tom Tomorrow asks: Can you spot the difference between Parallel Earth's Pat Robertson and ours?

With Supreme Court ruling non-update below

(Don't forget to click on the cartoon to enlarge it.)

by Ken

Sure, I could explain for you the true significance of the Massachusetts Senate election, and once and for all analyze its impact on the prospects for health care reform [note from DWT copy desk: Were there any prospects for actual health care reform?] and the rest of the Obama legislative program [note from DWT copy desk: Is there an Obama legislative program? Has anybody heard about this?] and the carry-over to the 2010 and 2012 elections. But frankly, I'm sick of the whole thing, and am only too happy to leave that clean-up operation to Howie. (Have we not been screaming for months that the Obama administration's policies were heading us for just such a revolting development?)

The part that might have interested me is Sen.-elect Scott Brown's now-second-biggest life accomplishment: his appearance stark nekkid in Cosmo. For the benefit of art connoisseurs Howie in his last post thoughtfully provided the pint-size reproduction of the single magzine spread which which seems to be all that exists of this great event online, and as an art lover, I have to say it really isn't that impressive. (Am I the only one who finds it erotically underwhelming, even though the guy was certainly decent-looking? Am I reading too much in to suggest that what's really "revealed" here is a deep-rooted drabness of character?) So no, I don't want to get into our Scott -- unless of course there are other, better pictures.

I actually avoided listening to any news Tuesday night, expecting pretty much what happened, and by luck when I heard some news on the radio Wednesday morning, the Massachusetts results had been crowded out of the top spot by -- wham! -- God dumping some more on those poor Haitians. Which brings us back to the universe as it existed pre-Massachusetts, namely in the form of this Tom Tomorrow cartoon, which offers us our Pat Robertson and the Pat Robertson on Parallel Earth, with the ever-so-subtle difference between them.

As for Massachusetts, you remember the episode of Boston Legal in which Alan and Denny had to try a murder case in Los Angeles before impossibly letter-of-the-law, East Coast-hating Judge Harvey Cooper, played so wickedly by Anthony Heald? (And did it so wonderfully that the producers had no choice but to drag the poor fellow to, of all places, Boston for more guest appearnaces.) You remember how Judge Cooper managed to make the word "Massachusetts" sound like Sodom and Gomorrah, and every other den of iniquity back to the Fall, rolled into one? This is what I'm thinking.

POSTSCRIPT: I ALSO DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE
(EXPECTED BUT) DISASTROUS SUPREME COURT RULING

Ah, the legacy of the Bush regime lives on. It is, of course, a personal disgrace for Anthony Kennedy to be writing the majority opinion, but of course it's also no accident. Face it, he's not a hell of a lot better than the Court's four declared fascists, and they know how to use the dolt to cover their butts when they're tearing at the fabric of our democracy.

Welcome to America, where we have government of the rich and privileged, by the rich and privileged, for the rich and privileged. And the legions of brain-scoured right-wing shitheads have been hornswoggled into cheering.

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Creator David E. Kelley shows there's life yet in Boston Legal--as Denny Crane is "Larry Craig-ed"

Poor Denny faced a fate worse than, well, whatever
happened to him last week: people thinking he's gay!

Ooh, that David E. Kelley! Just when you're ready to write Boston Legal off as having turned completely into yet another of Kelley's oddballs 'n' freaks extravaganzas (the guy has this genius for creating interesting and involving characters, but that seems to bore him; the seeds of the eventual self-destruction can usually be seen in his shows at an eerily early stage), he stops you in your tracks. Last night he even brought back supercilious Paul (Rene Auberjonois) to manage the latest fine mess Denny Crane (William Shatner) has gotten Crane, Poole & Schmidt into.

Denny, in case you didn't see the episode, has been "Larry Craig-ed," as his inseparable sidekick Alan Shore (James Spader). Poor constipated Denny went into a courthouse men's room, carefully chose a stall, set down his briefcase, hummed to help with the--you know--business at hand, and was summarily ordered out of the stall and arrested by a trio of plainclothes cops for you-know-what.

Naturally it fell to the soon-on-the-spot Alan to steer Denny through the crisis, including flatly refusing to settle the matter quietly by having Denny plead guilty to a lesser charge and pay a fine. That sounded awfully like extortion, Alan pointed out, producing an indignant response from Officer Whistler and his men's-room SWAT team.

I don't want to spoil it for you if you haven't watched the episode, which also had a fine plot line with Shirley (Candace Bergen) defending an old shock-jock pal played by Robert Wuhl, who's been fired for being, well, shocking on the air. Nevertheless, the episode gave us an extended glimpse of the screamingly obvious defense the hapless Larry Craig could have mounted if he hadn't been so terrified of the publicity of yet another taint of gayness.

Kelley's solid script--naturally he had the case tried before the single worst judge in the history of jurisprudence, Henry Gibson's daffy Judge Clark Brown (who you'll recall has had his own legal brush with gayness)--touched on all the things wrong with the kind of sting poor Larry and Denny were caught up in:

* the absence of any kind of crime, since even if the lads had been soliciting sex, that's simply not a crime

* the absence of any proof even of sexual solicitation, since the cops' idea that their "known" series of "signals" constitutes "definitive" proof couldn't possibly be taken seriously in any law-abiding American courtroom

* the failure of the prosecution even to hint that money was offered, let alone changed hands, which would at least elevate the activity to a possible crime--and never mind that meanwhile rampant real heterosexual prostitution in public places is routinely ignored by law-enforcement officials

Finally, with regard to homophobic Denny's revulsion at even a hint that he might be gay, in the best friends' ritual closing scene Alan actually got him to see the matter from a different angle. Why, it could be a whole new way to pick up women!

Thanks, David. I think I'm going to watch the episode again tonight.

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Is Denny Crane a racist? Hard to say, but shouldn't someone tell Chimpy the Prez that Denny's against the war now? (And tell McCain he "can't win"?)

Alan (James Spader) and Denny (William Shatner) digest the day on Boston Legal.

"Anybody in America can grow up to be president, that's what I say. Except Hillary. She wins, I puke."
--Denny Crane, explaining that he might vote for Barack Obama

Since the rain gods don't seem to give any consideration at all to what I'm supposed to watch when they choose to wipe out a given evening's home-team baseball activity, I got to look at my Tuesday Night DVR Twosome, House and Boston Legal, a mere day late this week.

The House episode was just plain spectacular; we really ought to talk about it sometime. It took us ever deeper into the strangely fascinating friendship between Drs. Wilson and House (Robert Sean Leonard and Hugh Laurie, right), and gave Foreman (Omar Epps) an episode of his own, a gripping exploration of fuck-ups, and death, and medical fuck-ups that result in death, and the question of where we come from and who we are--with the great Charles S. Dutton returning as Foreman's father and Beverly Todd appearing memorably as his Alzheimer's-afflicted mother. Wow!

The Boston Legal episode had its moments. It was only to be expected that by the time I started writing about the show, it was about to begin its plunge into the personal crapper to which writer-producer David E. Kelley seems to consign all his creations. It's hard to break the habit, though, and this week's traditional episode-closing scene of best friends Alan Shore and Denny "I'm Denny Crane" Crane nursing their cigars and drinks on Denny's terrace was a corker, ranging through questions of racism, the presidential candidates, the war in Iraq (and, Denny hoped, newer and fresher wars to come), and the fact that America is hated in the rest of the world.

Alan lost his case this week, failing in his attempt, on behalf of a former girlfriend with a six-year-old daughter, to prevent a chain department store from marketing "prosti-tot" dolls to children--and failing honorably to his old friend Jerry "Hands" Espenson.

Denny, meanwhile, who was probably a number of cards short of a full deck even before his affliction with "the mad cow," planted his foot even deeper in his mouth by telling a hotshot young African-American litigator the firm was eager to hire that he doesn't "sound black." But Crane Poole Schmidt's other remaining on-premises name partner, Shirley Schmidt (Candace Bergen, above), managed to rescue Denny by explaining at a press conference that he was speaking in the context of a mostly white law firm that has to cater to the preferences (prejudices?) of a mostly white clientele.

We pick up shortly after the start of the Alan-Denny scene, as Denny--who reminds us regularly that he's never lost a case--muses on Alan's having lost his.

DENNY: What's that like, to lose?

ALAN: You almost lost in a very big way today, my friend.

DENNY: Oh, you should have seen Shirley. If anyone wonders how she got to be Shirley Schmidt, the evidence was on full display today. She was as strong and as powerful and as dignified as any woman I've ever seen. Made me want to flip her on her back and have sex with her.

ALAN [after a pause]: Do you think you're a racist, Denny?

DENNY: Oh . . . no, I . . . I don't know. Do you think it's racist to say a man "sounds black"?

ALAN: I think it's more offensive to say "street" or "urban" when the inference is you mean "black."

DENNY: So what do you say?

ALAN: Well, Barack Obama referred to the "black sound" as a black "idiom," more like jazz and less like a set score.

DENNY: They let him get away with that?

ALAN [laughing]: Evidently.

DENNY: I might vote for him, you know.

ALAN [astonished]: Obama?

DENNY: Anybody in America can grow up to be president, that's what I say. Except Hillary. She wins, I puke.

ALAN [contemplating]: Barack Obama.

DENNY: Yeah. Handsome, great photo op. I don't know what he stands for. [Sudden realization.] Be a perfect president. He speaks perfect white, as well as black--you never heard me say that.

ALAN: What about McCain?

DENNY: He speaks Bu-u-ush now, can't win.

ALAN: Obama is against the war now, you know.

DENNY: So am I. [Alan is startled.] It's boring. I'm ready for a new war. Time to blow up Iran. We got Saddam. Now we've got to get, uh, Aminadouchebag. And that nutjob in North Korea. They've both got to go, and not . . . because . . . they're not white.

ALAN: Okay. Denny, does it bother you at all that America is so hated by the rest of the world?

DENNY: Well, of course it does, Alan. You just can't please everybody. Better to just . . .

ALAN: Blow them up!

DENNY: Exactly. And not . . . because they're not white.

ALAN: No.