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Slanted Rants
Wednesday, September 29th, 2004Just caught Dennis Miller’s show to see Nick Gillespie.
Gillespie did well, though the audience was a bit dim to pick up his jokes.
But what struck me most was just how much of a shill Miller has become. He was bad when the show started, and so I’ve never had any inclination to watch since the first week. But geez. Just one rhetorical fellating of Bush after another. And his jabs at Kerry weren’t even that funny, at least by Old Dennis Miller standards. They ranged from variations on RNC talking points (”he’d be the first president to give the State of the Union and the rebuttal”) to the puerile (”if Rove is Bush’s brain, who is Kerry’s balls?”)
I used to like Dennis Miller. He used to be funny. That was back when he when he was a fairly reliable voice against power, back when he’d have ridiculed an ever-ridiculable president like the one we have instead of campaigning for him, and back when he’d make fun of people who took themselves too seriously — people like, er, Dennis Miller.
I guess the right needs its Janeane Garofalos and Margaret Chos. It’s just too bad a guy who once had some libertarian street cred took the job.
I used to love Dennis’ rants against government bureaucracy and stupidity. That’s when he’d really get rolling. You’re absolutely right — it was when he railed against power that he was strongest, using his intellectual wit to whittle them down to size.
I miss that Dennis. I wonder what happened to him?
Damn right, Miller’s also the most horrible interviewer/debater. For a guy as seemingly smart as Miller, I’ve seen lefties just tear him to shreds over easily argued issues on his show.
Agreed, Miller was horrible
What happened to him? Apparently reduced to a puddle of daddy-seeking fear by 9/11. I can sort of understand that reaction, but how anyone can latch on to GWB as the protective father figure is beyond me.
VAMark,
Let’s be honest here. Dennis Miller’s career was at a pretty slow point. Turning into a hawkish GWB minion was a career move, without a doubt. Now he’s got his own little show. You think he’d have that same show if he was just another sensible, sane, antiwar hollywood actor (not that all antiwar actors are sensible and/or sane)? Of course not.
Political satarits lose cred when they bow to authority. The juxtaposition takes away from the edgy biting nature of the humor. He has morphed into Ann Coulter I can only hear so many jokes about Democrats and how they are giant Franch loving pansies. ALSO sad but true is that the same thing happened to Bill Mahr; he moved way left. I know this because when I have tuned into Miller I find myself arguing against him, when I watch Maher I find myself wanting to argue his points. Although I agree with more of Maher’s politics he lets the lefties off the hook wayyyyyy easier then he used to. The one recent time I tuned in and Michael Moore(yes that one) begging Nader not to run… It was awful just awful. Maher is now to the dems what Miller is to the Republicans. The fact is if you want political satire from the main stream media you are forced to go blue or red…
Do we have to start campaigning for third party humorists????
But /is/ miller hawkish GWB, or is he simply anti-Kerry?
* I think Miller’s a pretty funny guy, or is capable of that. I can’t see the audience not being sharp enough to get Gillespie, but knowing what Miller’s trying to say with his esoteric bullshit.
* As far as antiwar Hollywood, I have yet to hear one cogent criticism of the war from anyone in Hollywood, a town that is shamed by the average IQ of a marsupial. Most of their arguments boil down to “war is icky” without giving credible alternatives. Yes, no WMDs have been found, but I don’t think a nuke would have wooed Susan Sarandon and intellectual powerhouses like Rob Reiner to hop on the Dubya bandwagon.
Dissing Dennis
Radley Balko thinks Dennis Miller has become nothing but a shill for the President, and based on the few times I’ve seen his show, well, Mr. Balko may be correct. One of his commenters thinks Mr. Miller’s new image was…
Miller went from the penthouse (HBO) to the ghetto (CNBC? MSNBC? Hell, I dunno, I never watch either) of cable, largely due IMO to his becoming such a shrill tool for the right. And his interviews… whew, I never thought I’d see someone so quick to fellate his favored guests like that since Arsenio faded into obscurity.
Miller used to be topical and relevant; now he’s too afraid to rail against the status quo to even be humorous…
Here’s some news.
Miller’s show has been renewed into 2005.
I used to stick up for Miller. The man always had a law-and-order populist streak, so I wasn’t surprised to see him backing the president on the war. “I disagree with him,” I’d tell people, “but he’s still smart and funny.”
I don’t say that now that he’s taken to repeating Republican talking points. This guy used to hate cant; now he deals in it.
The funniest part of the episode Nick was on was the “interview” with Robert Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy hijacked it completely. For those of you who missed it, it went roughly like this:
MILLER: Asks opening question.
KENNEDY: Makes gesture towards answering question, fakes left, and ends up speaking for half the length of the interview on the topics he’d rather discuss.
MILLER: Starts to ask a second question.
KENNEDY: Breaks in to say, “Let me make one more point.” Makes that point, then makes several more, with a speech that may well be longer than the first one.
MILLER: We’re out of time, but I’d just like to say how much I admired your father.
KENNEDY: Thank you.
“Miller’s show has been renewed into 2005.”
Well, that just means CNBC calculated that his show would be marginally more profitable than an infomercial with Pat Boone shilling questionable gold investments.
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