Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

UTUSN

(70,684 posts)
Fri Mar 6, 2020, 11:24 PM Mar 2020

MAHER is doing a segment on Tweety, "I will miss him."

And he's identifying because he got Politically Incorrect canceled.

He says Repukes only fight Dems but Dems have a 2-front war with both Repukes and then with each other.








25 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
MAHER is doing a segment on Tweety, "I will miss him." (Original Post) UTUSN Mar 2020 OP
Is Maher on tonight? smirkymonkey Mar 2020 #1
Yip, and NEW. & I'm a cable cutter am watching on USGO.TV!1 UTUSN Mar 2020 #2
I usually catch it on YouTube late night. smirkymonkey Mar 2020 #6
Hates Cancel Culture superpatriotman Mar 2020 #3
"As do I" - I was going to say, adding: To a degree; nuance; proportion. UTUSN Mar 2020 #4
Can't agree with Bill on this edhopper Mar 2020 #5
Well, I've got 20 years of documenting Tweety here & never excused him for being ExpirationDate. UTUSN Mar 2020 #7
I am a Boomer too edhopper Mar 2020 #8
Let's see whether I can re-phrase myself better: UTUSN Mar 2020 #10
Bill is off on his campaign finance money new rules edhopper Mar 2020 #9
Sure it is, if you are willing to say "No" when they ask for favors. Hoyt Mar 2020 #11
yeah edhopper Mar 2020 #14
Sure it does. Not often enough, though. Hoyt Mar 2020 #16
Maher is just a more up to date misogynist. efhmc Mar 2020 #12
one misogynist misses another Skittles Mar 2020 #13
Well, do the ass kicking thing!1 Oh, sounds like you did!1 UTUSN Mar 2020 #15
you're wearing Crocs again, aren't you? Skittles Mar 2020 #19
Flip flops forever, never crocs!1 UTUSN Mar 2020 #22
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Skittles Mar 2020 #23
I would never wear pajama bottoms or tops in public, just well appointed shorts/shirt & the flips. UTUSN Mar 2020 #24
naw, no foot fetish Skittles Mar 2020 #25
I won't miss him. I've never been able to watch him. ooky Mar 2020 #17
Coincidentally, Maher himself noted that misanthrope Mar 2020 #20
His (Tweety's) leaving couldn't have been timed better for me. House of Roberts Mar 2020 #18
We have met the enemy dweller Mar 2020 #21

UTUSN

(70,684 posts)
2. Yip, and NEW. & I'm a cable cutter am watching on USGO.TV!1
Fri Mar 6, 2020, 11:31 PM
Mar 2020

Lately I have watched the next day on YouTube.






UTUSN

(70,684 posts)
7. Well, I've got 20 years of documenting Tweety here & never excused him for being ExpirationDate.
Fri Mar 6, 2020, 11:50 PM
Mar 2020

The byword I use is what a DUer said years ago, "*WHEN* he's on our side there's nobody better."

I seethed with all the things he did against us, his RAYGUN worship, his ravaging GORE *every f***ing day* during Coup 2000, yet when he skewered Repukes it was fine with me.

The "sell by date" is not my automatic response as to whether somebody is limited to the fixed moment in past time and culture they grew up in. After all, he's a Boomer like me but went through the '60s/'70s/more, too.











UTUSN

(70,684 posts)
10. Let's see whether I can re-phrase myself better:
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 12:04 AM
Mar 2020

I don't see that *all* humans have outlooks/brains that putrefy and deteriorate. I've known some and hope I am one who keep growing and changing. To a degree I *do* think that Tweety is severely a product of his Irish-Catholic, a-hole Catholic schoolboy cultural mind-prison.

As for your finding him "condescending to women," well, I didn't want to rehash my profile of him that I've been posting for 2 decades, but I guess I will:

************* Etymology of "Tweety". During Campaign 2000 the media noise machine was swooning over the nicknames Shrub was giving some of them. Media Whores Online ran a contest to nickname Chris MATTHEWS. In the first three or so weeks, there was no clear, catchy front runner, with "The Screamer" sort of leading. Then one of MATTHEWS's own Hardball staff leaked to MWO that they themselves called him "Tweety" because of the Clairol shade of hair coloring he favored. This was immediately declared the winner. But in some quarters, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. For one thing, by the time the name was declared, the shade had changed to platinum, leading to a suggestion he be called "Carole LOMBARD".
   
Plus, "Tweety" sounded too affectionate. 

His Misogyny.  Then M-TV held its 20th or 25th or whatever anniversary, and all the cable echo chambers were doing segments of Britney shedding her duds down to almost nothing. Not to be left behind, Tweety followed suit, with a guest "culture" commentator from Time Mag, the young humor columnist, Joel STEIN. The staff kept re-running the Britney clip, and Tweety was clearly DROOLING disgustingly. STEIN said, "You're beginning to creep me out." Tweety responded, "Yeah, well, wait till YOU're 50." This led to the suggestion that "Tweety" be modified to "Tweezer" to retain the hair reference while canceling out the affection factor and also adding the (dirty old) "geezer" angle.
Back when, misogyny was a wink-wink/smirk-smirk thing among the old style flunkies like him, there were many examples of his, with HRC being his prime target for years until she was becoming a real contender, when he yearned to host her, but the bridges had been burned. 
But here's a vignette from back in the day, regarding his wife Kathleen. He deigned to host her or let her co-host a segment or so, this time with him and another recycled miscreant Mike BARNICLE. She was standing like at the front of a class and they two were sitting like the smirking, spit-balling, Catholic schoolboy-jerks that they really are. She trudged through her presentation, taking her subject seriously while the two of them smirked, giggled, and mocked all the way. But regarding Kathleen, he exemplifies one signature characteristic of misogynists: Despite the obviously hostile behaviors, they claim to adore, honor, put-on-a-pedestal women. And Tweety frequently does that over-compensating, protests-too-much thing by referring to her as, "MY QUEEN." 
*************So flash forward decades to the TWITLER atrocious era, specifically calling Senator WARREN “Pocahontas.” Tweety hosted her soon after a TWITLER episode of it, besides a manic outburst of his sputtering interrupting, almost giggling every time he said that name, catching himself each time then protesting that it was a horrible thing, like Beavis/Butthead giggling at a dirty word. So WARREN kept to the high road and that TWITLER was not going to silence her. So then he struck, like when he lashed out at DONAHUE. He was in bursting giggle mode and said, "So, for you 'Pocahontas' will be like a clarion call for you to come charging out!1" and he busted his gut. WARREN looked sucker punched. 

Darrell HAMMOND "Doing" Tweety on SNL. Tweety's ego was massively stroked after the debut of HAMMOND's impersonation of him, either in 2001 or 2002. He said, "I am now an ICON: I have been 'done' on Saturday Night Live'." The funniest line in the debut was HAMMOND as Tweety, cracking himself up with, "For the ... FIFTY ... people who watch this show...” (Hardball, not SNL). In the first few times HAMMOND featured him, the target was Tweety himself -- manically interrupting, spitting, and drooling. However, the characterization evolved, not true to the original, where Tweety became the "rational" character surrounded by oddball, extremist "guests", with HAMMOND-Tweety shaking his head in disbelief at their partisan spin.   

"Turning" from Being a Democrat. He (like G.E.RUSSERT and Pat CADDELL) still trades on having been a Democrat in the CARTER/O'NEILL era. In the hothouse of big time political flunkydom, STATUS and POWER come from the SUCCESS of your boss. RAYGUN kicked Tweety's bosses' rears, and Tweety gravitated to admiring that "success". When he started up his media career he was mentored by G.E. RUSSERT, who had himself already started "turning" by "reaching out" to LIMBOsevic and expending his formerly-Lib-bleeding-heart on those poor wingnuts who had been maligned and marginalized by the Liberal Elite, lo those many years. Tweety started doing video valentines to RAYGUN, promenading arm in arm with Nancy. He might have tapped into the frenzy of the FAKE impeachment, but "hatred of the CLINTONs" isn't what made him turn. The last time he was identifiably a Democrat was sometime around 1988 when Hardball (the book) was published.  Throughout the year of Campaign 2000 he savaged the Dem candidate daily and went on to years of bromance over Shrub, renouncing any Democratic heritage.  He said his parents were “cloth coat" (Rethugs), and that basically what first drew him to the Dem side was Irish-Catholic pride over JFK.  Not ideology, not idealism.  He said the reason he joined the Peace Corps was specifically to avoid going to Vietnam. 

How Tweety "Executed" DONAHUE on MSNBC. Tweety was on his book tour for another one of his "books" (large type, wide spaces between lines, blank half-pages). It was in the jingoistic hysteria in the run-up to the illegal Iraq attack. The book was about supposed "Americanism" -- an American Civ 101 ripoff about books and movies and cultural stuff that are essentially American (think, "The Great Gatsby" ). So Phil welcomed him as a colleague and peer on Phil's MSNBC show for the full hour to plug the book. From the moment he appeared, there was a strange, deadly snake look in Tweety's snake eyes. Phil was walking around the audience, apparently not sensing anything, while Tweety was motionless, following him only with his eyes. Phil brought up something or other questioning blind, kneejerk jingoism, and Tweety STRUCK! He started out with venom dripping, "You see, THIS is EXACTLY what's wrong with YOU Liberals: You are NEGATIVE about this country, you find NOTHING good about it," and on and on. It took awhile before Phil figured out what was happening. Later, Phil, devastated and spent, was sitting at the table with Tweety and, weaker and weaker, did some of his trademark shoulder shrugging and arm waving. Tweety delivered the coup de grace, "What's THIS (mimicking the movements)??!! What's with the --APE-- movements???!" Days or a week or two later, Phil's cancellation was announced and took effect. 

How Tweety "Triggered" a Gun Incident (re: Kathleen WILLEY). At the height of the FAKE impeachment, Ms WILLEY claimed that a mystery jogger had threatened her or her cat or somebody, with the insinuation that there was a CLINTON connection. Several months later, there was gossip that the jogger had been identified. Tweety hosted her and it appeared they had discussed the identity off camera. He tried mightily to get her to say the name on the air, which she wouldn't do. Finally, he himself blurted it out, "Was it (Name/Surname)?" She wouldn’t confirm it. Within days there was a bizarre incident, with the mentally disabled brother of Pat and Bay BUCHANAN going with a gun to the house of the supposed jogger named by Tweety, where there were only some foreign exchange students present. Later it was determined that the person Tweety named on the air had NOTHING to do with the supposed jogger incident. 

"Heroes" Tweety and Tom DeLAY. In the aftermath of the 07-24-98 shooting of two Capitol police officers when the slain officers were duly eulogized and called heroes, Tweety latched on to this, the way we have seen him attempt to glorify himself in other instances: Like saying he was assigned to Africa in the Peace Corps and "WALKED THE SAME GROUND" THAT CHURCHILL had passed through. Or when he said, "I am an ICON! I have been 'done' by SNL!". So now that the Capitol policemen were being called heroes, Tweety came forward to say that HE had been a Capitol policemen, TOO, JUST LIKE THEM, when he was starting out. It turns out that he had worked a (temporary?) job for three months as that. In all the years before the officers were shot and eulogized, he probably NEVER referred to that job, most likely thinking of it as a rent-a-cop turn, until he could see in retrospect the glory that he had been DESTINED to from the beginning.  But he is not the only glory hog. When that incident was happening, the news of the moment reported that Tom DELAY had hopped a plane out of town and immediately turned around in Houston when the incident was over. This show of courage is why he has been dubbed, "Tom-DePLANE!-DePLANE!-DELAY".  But searches of countless news reports of that time show no mention of the hopping-the-plane. Only this is left: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm /... "...House members, many rushing out of town, did not have to remain behind. DeLay slipped out the main door of the Capitol less than 15 minutes after the shooting. He looked stricken. Asked if he'd seen anything, he said, "Did I ever. I don't want to talk about it." Aides rushed him into his waiting car. ...."

------------

 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
11. Sure it is, if you are willing to say "No" when they ask for favors.
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 12:11 AM
Mar 2020

That was Maher’s point. Take their money — to beat trump — then, tell them to go screw themselves. They’ll have less money, to boot.

Skittles

(153,150 posts)
23. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 03:48 PM
Mar 2020

SHOWER SHOES!

OMG UTUSN at the grocery store I saw a grown man wearing pajama bottoms with sloths on them, and flip flops.......it took EVERYTHING I had not to physically attack him.

UTUSN

(70,684 posts)
24. I would never wear pajama bottoms or tops in public, just well appointed shorts/shirt & the flips.
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 04:02 PM
Mar 2020

Yes, my first exposure to them was in the military when we all had to wear them to avoid athlete's foot (and cellulitis?) and we called them "shower shoes.u" Thought about them only as that, then back as civilian never wore them or thought about them for years, until they spread like the epidemic and now wear them all the time, including shopping and eating, except to groups.

So, is it an aversion of yours to *FEET*?!1 The opposite of a foot FETISH?!1 Are you always covered and bound up to the knees?!1 I'm curiouser and curiouser!1






Skittles

(153,150 posts)
25. naw, no foot fetish
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 05:43 PM
Mar 2020

I don't care if there are diamonds on them, when I see flip flops I see shower shoes.

ooky

(8,922 posts)
17. I won't miss him. I've never been able to watch him.
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 12:26 AM
Mar 2020

His style of asking a question and then interrupting the respondent I have always found very irritating.

misanthrope

(7,411 posts)
20. Coincidentally, Maher himself noted that
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 01:27 AM
Mar 2020

saying he couldn't stand that aspect of Matthews' shows.

For me, that was the biggest and most obvious reason to "retire" him and it should have happened long ago. Any resources spent pulling in guests for his show were absolutely wasted because it ended up an hour of his ceaseless babble. He's an exceedingly frustrating and annoying host whose style turned off as many (maybe more) than it attracted.

House of Roberts

(5,168 posts)
18. His (Tweety's) leaving couldn't have been timed better for me.
Sat Mar 7, 2020, 12:31 AM
Mar 2020

I move from night shift to day shift on Monday. I'll likely be able to turn on MSNBC before 7pm (Central) for the first time in years.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»MAHER is doing a segment ...