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October 7, 2008 1:04:22 AM CDT

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Slowly I Turned... track this thread

Started by Imperator; Last updated Jun 2, 08 2:56 PM CDT by Imperator | View history

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Slowly I Turned...

"Slowly I Turned" is the most common name associated with a popular vaudeville sketch that has also been performed in cinema and on television...The routine has two performers pretending to meet for the first time, with one of them becoming highly agitated over the utterance of particular words. Names and cities (such as Niagara Falls) have been used as the trigger, which then send the unbalanced person into a state of mania; the implication is that the words have an unpleasant association in the character's past. While the other performer merely acts bewildered, the crazed actor relives the incident, uttering the words, "Slowly I turned...step by step...inch by inch...," as he approaches the stunned onlooker. Reacting as if this stranger is the object of his rage, the angry actor begins hitting or strangling him, until the screams of the victim shake him out of his delusion. The actor then apologizes, admitting his irrational reaction to the mention of those certain words. This follows with the victim innocently repeating the words, sparking the insane reaction all over again. - Wikipedia

It's almost like a vaudeville routine as the rats leave the sinking S.S. Bush and write their memoirs about how they disagreed with everything they did while on board on the way to the lifeboat.

Stories

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  • June 2008

    • NASA Was Muzzled on Climate Change

      New York Times  |  Jun 3, 08 8:19 AM CDT

      NASA Was Muzzled on Climate Change

      (Newser) - Political appointees at NASA withheld scientific results on global warming, NASA's inspector general has determined after an internal probe. Investigators found that the public affairs office, run by Bush appointees, suffered from political spinning that was "inconsistent" with the agency's responsibility to pass full information on to the public, the New York Times reports. More »

    • Ex-US Commander in Iraq Bashes Bush in Memoir

      Washington Post  |  Jun 2, 08 12:11 PM CDT

      Ex-US Commander in Iraq Bashes Bush in Memoir

      (Newser) - Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who led US forces in Iraq for a year after Saddam’s ouster, says George W. Bush “led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions” in a memoir the Washington Post deems “lost in the media furor” over Scott McClellan's. Sanchez recounts a presidential video-conference pep talk in 2004: “Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! More »

    • McClellan Blasts Bush for Not Firing Rove

      Associated Press  |  Jun 1, 08 4:35 PM CDT

      McClellan Blasts Bush for Not Firing Rove

      (Newser) - President Bush should have fired aide Karl Rove over the Plamegate affair, Scott McClellan said today. Publicizing his Washington tell-all book, McClellan also blasted Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's ex-chief of staff, for denying they had leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame's name, the AP reports. "We had higher standards at the White House." More »

  • May 2008

    • Shoot at the Facts, Not at the Messenger

      Wall Street Journal  |  May 30, 08 5:21 PM CDT

      Shoot at the Facts, Not at the Messenger

      (Newser) - Scott McClellan isn't someone Peggy Noonan found herself admiring, she writes in the Wall Street Journal , but she did end up “believing him" after finishing his memoir. He didn’t pen his story to make friends or salvage his image, but rather to set the record straight as he saw it. And first-person accounts are exactly what’s needed: “Feed history,” Noonan demands. More »

    • Bush Mob Sets Its Sights on McClellan

      New York Daily News  |  May 30, 08 3:55 PM CDT

      Bush Mob Sets Its Sights on McClellan

      (Newser) - The Bush administration's reaction to Scott McClellan's new book should look familiar to anyone with HBO, with one important difference, writes Mike Lupica in the Daily News. "it has become clear by now that even the hoods from The Sopranos would be out of their weight class with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove." More »

    • Frankenstein Betrays His Master

      Washington Post  |  May 30, 08 1:35 PM CDT

      Frankenstein Betrays His Master

      (Newser) - In Scott McClellan, the White House built a Frankenstein monster to regurgitate its “talking points, monotonously if not mindlessly, no matter what argument or fact stood in the way,” Dana Milbank writes in the Washington Post . Well now the monster is back, with “famous fealty to his message…as stubborn as ever”—but now he’s programmed for Bush-bashing, not Bush-boosting. More »

    • Furious Dole Calls McClellan 'Miserable Creature'

      Politico  |  May 30, 08 12:28 PM CDT

      Furious Dole Calls McClellan 'Miserable Creature'

      (Newser) - Bush turncoat Scott McClellan may have taken his hardest hit yesterday in a personal message from Bob Dole, who called the ex-press secretary a “miserable creature.” “Your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique,” the 1996 Republican presidential nominee wrote in an email leaked to Politico. More »

    • CNN Reporter: Corp. Execs Pushed Media to Play Up War

      Salon  |  May 29, 08 9:58 AM CDT

      CNN Reporter: Corp. Execs Pushed Media to Play Up War

      (Newser) - CNN reporter Jessica Yellin charged on-air last night that “the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives” to present the Iraq war consistently “with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings.” Responding to Scott McClellan’s complaint that reporters were too “deferential,” Yellin—who was at ABC in the war run-up—told Anderson Cooper her own pieces were edited to elevate the positive and downplay the critical. More »

    • McClellan: I Believed Bush

      Politico  |  May 29, 08 9:16 AM CDT

      McClellan: I Believed Bush

      (Newser) - Affection and loyalty blinded Scott McClellan in the run-up to the Iraq war, but now the former press secretary has found a higher allegiance—“a loyalty to the truth.” McClellan, whose book is causing a media storm for alleging President Bush ran a “propaganda” campaign about the war, defended his work this morning on NBC's Today . More »

    • Anchors (Except for Katie) Just Don't Get It

      Salon  |  May 28, 08 9:13 PM CDT

      Anchors (Except for Katie) Just Don't Get It

      (Newser) - Katie Couric thinks Scott McClellan has a point with his criticism of the media in the lead-up to the war, but Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams beg to differ—and that's a disgrace, writes Glenn Greenwald in Salon. During a get-together of network anchors, the "painfully empty-headed Gibson" and the "mindlessly establishment-defending" Williams said the media offered plenty of skepticism, but Greenwald counters that today's celebrity journalists simply don't understand their own profession. More »

    • Journos Pick at McClellan Portrayal

      Time  |  May 28, 08 3:56 PM CDT

      Journos Pick at McClellan Portrayal

      (Newser) - Scott McClellan writes in his memoir that “the ‘liberal media’ didn't live up to its reputation” on Iraq. “If it had, the country would have been better served.” Some insider reactions: “You know you're a wussy press corps when the former White House Press Secretary says you were too easy on him,” James Poniewozik writes in Time . He agrees many writers were worried about appearing unpatriotic in the run-up to war, but it’s “pathetic” McClellan was parroting President Bush when he knew better. More »

    • Rove Brushes Off McClellan Claims on Plame Deception

      Chicago Tribune  |  May 28, 08 11:29 AM CDT

      Rove Brushes Off McClellan Claims on Plame Deception

      (Newser) - With the political world abuzz over the harsh tone of Scott McClellan’s new memoir about the "culture of deception''  in the Bush White House, Karl Rove is defending himself against one of the former spokesman’s most damning claims—that Rove and Scooter Libby colluded in a Valerie Plame cover-up and misled McClellan on the matter. Rove says, contrary to the McClellan account, he and Libby spoke regularly—and never discussed the CIA outing. More »

    • McClellan Blasts Bush in Harsh New Memoir

      Politico  |  May 27, 08 8:24 PM CDT

      McClellan Blasts Bush in Harsh New Memoir

      (Newser) - Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan blasts President Bush for not being "open and forthright" about the war in Iraq and using "propaganda" to sell it, Politico reports. The president "veered terribly off course," McClellan writes in his surprisingly harsh new memoir. He also criticizes the press for not challenging Bush enough, even while admitting that some of his own statements at press conferences were "badly misguided." More »

  • April 2008

    • Paid Off And Gagged, WSJ Honchos Betray Treasured Trust

      New York Times  |  Apr 28, 08 2:41 PM CDT

      Paid Off And Gagged, WSJ Honchos Betray Treasured Trust

      (Newser) - More top Wall Street Journal execs have been spit out by the Murdoch machine, and the staff they leave behind is furious they’re leaving so quietly. Zipping their mouths was part of hefty severance packages, David Carr notes in the New York Times , and as the line evaporates between editorial standards and owner's whims, the protectors of journalistic independence are missing in action. More »

    • White House 'Duped' General Into Torture: Book

      Guardian (UK)  |  Apr 19, 08 7:54 AM CDT

      White House 'Duped' General Into Torture: Book

      (Newser) - The Bush administration "hoodwinked" one of the country's top military men in order to establish harsh interrogation techniques on Guantanamo Bay prisoners, according to revelations in a new book reported in the Guardian. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers was misled by White House aides into abandoning the military's long-standing ban on inhumane treatment of prisoners, according to London law professor Phillipe Sands in his book Torture Team. More »

    • Politicians: They're All Crazy

      Daily Telegraph (UK)  |  Apr 15, 08 3:56 PM CDT