Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World: Bush Brothers, the Dumb and Dumber

Dumb and Dumber

As you are no doubt aware, Phillipe and Jorge are deep thinkers, and philosophical discussions at Casa Diablo often extend well into the night (fueled by frequent refills of Pernod and grapefruit and whatever we can find in the medicine cabinet that won’t knock us out).

So it was in the wee hours recently that P&J found themselves debating one of the most important questions facing all Americans today: Which of the two Bush brother aligns best with the Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels characters in the Farrelly Brothers’ movie Dumb and Dumber?

Phillipe argued that presidential aspirant Jeb could best fill Carrey’s role, as he was an action man while in office as Florida’s governor. Whereas Dubya let Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld do the heavy lifting of running the country while he commuted back and forth to Crawford, Texas, to ride his Pee Wee Herman bike with streamers flying off the handlebars around the property and ringing the little bell constantly, or hiding under his bed when the going got tough back in DC.

Jorge countered that by saying that Dubya was the more aggressive one. He has the capacity for making bold pronouncements without first engaging his brain, such as telling the terrorists to “Bring it on,” which to America’s dismay they did (and have continued to) while Dubya went back under the queen-sized in Crawford, or shouting and waving his sword about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — Deadeye Dick, Condee and Rummy failed to let him in on the joke that they didn’t exist. Jeb takes witless responses typical of Daniels, even if they are entirely boneheaded.

Unfortunately for Jughead Jeb, he will have the shadow of the country’s village idiot constantly tracking him during his campaign. It already started when Megan Kelly of the repugnant Fox News asked him if he would have done what little brother did by invading Saddam Hussein’s fiefdom if we knew what we know now. Naturally, like any politician, Jeb was not paying attention to the question, but readying a formulaic answer about Iraq. This short attention span theater approach would work real well at a major summit meeting: “Why did you say you wanted to put an ‘X’ on the Ukraine, President Putin?” “I said ‘annex,’ you moron.” {Aside to Russian aide: “This guy is more out of it than Yeltsin after he polished off two liters of Stoli.”)

But back to our story. Jeb essentially ducked the question, although leaning in favor of supporting Dubya’s abominable choice, and confidently and obliviously uttered a non sequiter reference to Hillary Clinton’s initial support for the Iraq fiasco, leaving his handlers no doubt clutching their heads in horror. But wait — there’s more! Jughead got raked over the coals in the media so it became time for Jeb to quickly “walk back” his statement. Linguistics aficionados know that “walk back” is the current evolution of, “My remarks were taken out of context,” followed by, “I misspoke,” but they all come down to, in English, “I was lying and/or completely clueless.”

Jeb Bush really has no shot at becoming the Republican Party candidate because of the Dubya baggage, even as he emerges from the GOP’s clown car along with Mario Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and players to be named later. He looks amazingly un-presidential, instead reminding P&J of a high school nerd whose mother cuts his hair weekly, and who goes home right after school to read the Bible or play video games until dinner and homework.

Jeb Bush doesn’t just not have a date for the prom, he won’t even go. Dubya couldn’t even find the school gym where it was being held.

Kangaroo Court

Yep, P&J are as bone weary of the Deflategate issue as you are. However, we do feel obliged to comment on the case that has ensnarled the New England Patriots and our oft-invoked short-term personal savior, Tom Brady. (Tip of the beret and sombrero to the Church of the Sub-Genius for the very effective “short-term personal savior” concept.)

But the completely over-the-top penalties handed down to Tom Terrific and the Pats have actually been exceeded in preposterousness by the announcement that the clueless, misogynistic and incompetent NFL commish Roger Goodell has decided that he, not an impartial arbiter, will be the judge and jury on the Patriots’ and Brady’s appeal of the punishment.

This is such a blatant conflict of interest it would make a member of Little Rhody’s General Assembly blush. We already have a report as basis for the penalties that no lawyer would ever dare take before a real court of law unless he was looking to be disbarred. General knowledge of a transgression and a bunch of probablys would be thrown out before the prosecutor’s seat got warm. Get hard evidence or get going, counsel.

The so-called Wells Report also reeks of blatant bias, as supposedly impartial investigator Ted Wells and his team were paid a handsome sum of money by the NFL for their protracted investigation into the affair, but it is essentially, to quote Billy Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.” And please raise your hands, boys and girls, if you have ever seen a report by a highly paid consultant issue findings that don’t favor all the desires of those writing the checks.  Thought so.

Now, on top of this, we are to have the man who doled out the punishment also decide the appeal of his decision? We don’t think so. Goodell is a gutless buttboy for the owners, and should have resigned after the Ray Rice wife-beating farce, but he has neither the balls nor dignity to do the right thing and quit, which means walking out on his undeserved $44 million per year contract. The gutter journos at TMZ who beat Goodell’s crack sleuths to the punch on the Rice case in getting the elevator tape of that creep punching out his wife could do a more respectable job of arbitration. See you in a real court, Rog.

Home Sweet (Temporary) Home

A long time back, P&J were informed by a very learned source who was friends with some rather unsavory characters on the local crime scene that the leader of organized crime in the area, Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio, was a fan of “Phillipe and Jorge’s Cool, Cool World.” Must have been our striking resemblances to Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane. (For younger readers, make that Lee Child and Robert B. Parker.) Hey, you don’t get to be the godfather without having good taste.

At any rate, Baby Shacks is being released from spending a few years inside at the government’s pleasure after being implicated in scams that involved shaking down local strip clubs. Instead of having Don Manocchio go to a halfway house en route to a return to society, we saw an opportunity to help out a devoted reader and had our buddy Luigi allowed instead to use Casa Diablo as his transition residence. The compliant judge obviously recognized P&J’s stellar reputation in the community and ability to live a mundane life on the straight and narrow.

We are looking forward to Baby Shacks regaling us with tales about his hand in having people join the choir eternal, burglary, loan sharking and racketeering, which of course he had no hand in. He is, in fact, just a whimsical raconteur and fantasist, much in the way the Mafia does not exist. So if you plan on coming to Casa Diablo for a visit, please call in advance so we can give you the password. Ignore those large and swarthy (but very well dressed in pinstriped suits and shiny steel-toed Italian shoes) gentlemen with lumps under their jackets outside the front and back doors.

Benvenuti, Luigi!

For Richard: Second Annual Red Bandana Awards