Twin Cities City Pages
TV · · Vol 25 · Issue 1211 · PUBLISHED 2/18/04
URL: www.citypages.com/databank/25/1211/article11902.asp
It's Not Miller Time (Who's in the mood to watch Mussolini debate Eugene
Debs
on 'The View'?)
by Dennis Perrin
Smug, arrogant, slightly informed, Dennis Miller rants and cackles and
shakes
his head with true contempt. Anyone who disagrees with him is on the wrong
side
of history, if not a danger to the country itself. Why? Because Miller is
on
the right side of history. How do I know this? He's been saying it for
months.
Oh, the references! The references! his new right-wing fans say, impressed
with
how Miller bolsters his bits by using dissimilar items like the Edict of
Nantes, ranch dressing, Coltrane, curling, the House Ways and Means
Committee,
and Prinze Sr. riffing with Albertson on the set of Chico before he blew
his
brains out in a Pollock-like spray of skull fragments that when seen from
a
distance resembles John Kerry's foreign-policy views.
Sorry. After watching two solid weeks of Miller's new CNBC chatfest, my
mind
occasionally drifts in this direction. It's driving my wife crazy. "Will
you
finish that damn piece and move on?"
Yes, darling.
From Star Search prop comic to "Weekend Update" smartass to HBO ranter to
pomo
Don Meredith on Monday Night Football, Miller has had a pretty charmed
career.
Through it all, he has maintained the same shtick, shifting attack fronts
depending on the political season, setting, and mood. His current gig is a
mix
of "Update," HBO, and Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect and Real
Time--only
Maher (for whom I once wrote) knows his limits and his strengths and has
evolved into a pretty good political humorist. Miller acknowledges no
limits.
When the red light comes on, he's The Man, spouting off on anything that
pops
into his head.
In promotional interviews leading up to his show's premiere, Miller let
anyone
interested know that he is a soldier in George Bush's army. Well, not a
real
soldier, of course. Miller won't patrol Baghdad or Kabul anytime soon. But
he
is part of the stateside effort to privatize 9/11 as an exclusive
Republican
property. I wouldn't be surprised to see him speak at the GOP convention
in New
York this September, an event that, if handled properly, could become a
great
monument to the political exploitation of massive human suffering. Who
better
than Dennis Miller to work that crowd?
Indeed, Miller has already privatized that awful day for himself. "9/11
changed
me," he told the Associated Press on January 25. "I'm shocked that it
didn't
change the whole country, frankly." You see, 9/11 isn't something that
happened
to America, nor to the people who were killed, nor to their families and
friends. No, 9/11 happened to Dennis Miller, and since he possesses such
high
morality and keen political insight, an injury to him is perhaps the
harshest
injury of all.
CNBC felt Miller's pain, and so the network granted him an hour every
weeknight
to vent it. One of the things I love about the Liberal Media is their
compassion. Here was Miller, doing short bits for Fox's comedy team
Hannity &
Colmes, and clearly pining for a spinoff. But, alas, Fox had no room for
Miller
(how do you top Bill O'Reilly on the laugh meter?), so CNBC stepped in and
gave
him the eight o'clock slot.
CNBC was hoping for a more urbane version of the Fox vibe, and to a degree
they've gotten it. Miller's show has yet to go the Rube Guignol route that
Fox
viewers prefer, but it's still early. Should Miller's ratings slip, we'll
see
just what he's willing to do to keep the mouth-breathers fogging their
screens.
Another interesting feature of the Liberal Media is how much they love
those
who call for extended state violence. Most of this is simple
supply/demand:
Producers and network execs know that the meat of their audience hoots and
hollers with every cluster bomb strike. There's little chance that a cable
news
host will be allowed to swim against such a polluted tide. Ask Phil
Donahue.
Despite holding MSNBC's top evening ratings, the network cut Donahue
loose. An
inner-office memo leaked to the press explained why: MSNBC wanted no
appearance
of opposing Bush during an invasion. The network's suits quickly affixed
American flag pins to their lapels and hired the likes of Michael Savage
and
Joe Scarborough, just to show how much they love democracy, freedom, and
whatever else would bring some of Fox's audience their way.
The suits at CNBC don't have to worry about Dennis Miller's views on
imperial
conquest. George Bush is Miller's Warrior Spirit Guide. No way can the
right
accuse NBC and its various offshoots of lacking patriotism, not with
Miller on
board, especially since Miller has cruised with the president on Air Force
One
and attended the recent State of the Union address. As Miller told Time
magazine, he respects Bush because he's devoted to endless war against the
Arab
world. Hard to say what Bush really thinks, but Miller makes his own
thoughts
plain: invade Syria, invade Iran (an "easier overthrow" than Iraq, he said
last
summer), invade anyone who happens to make Miller nervous.
Bombing other countries would be good, too. As Miller opined in one of his
Hannity & Colmes routines, if North Korea dares to test a nuclear device,
"I
think we might have to find out what day the test is and then, in essence,
bomb
their bomb test. They wheel out their pukey little starter bomb and we
trump it
with a state-of-the-art 'Fat Boy.' Define the pecking order early on, as
it
were."
As Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler would say, this is your cable
discourse. A
nightly display of nationalism, pseudo-intellectual justifications for all
manner of violence, and personalities and egos run amok. Miller fits in
beautifully, and given that before him CNBC was airing stuff like
"Bay-Window-Measuring with Art Howe," Miller's show should be around for
awhile.
One positive note--I like Ellie the chimp. A perfect co-host to Miller.
Here we
have a political animal that farts in Miller's face. That one gesture
tells me
that Ellie understands the environment she's working in. On a show filled
with
screeching humans, it's the primate who gets the joke.
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