Get ready, because South Florida's No. 1 media whore has finally done the inevitable.
Robert Wexler is hitting the reality circuit this week.
The Democratic Congressman from Boca Raton, who last month moronically told the world he enjoyed cocaine on The Colbert Report, is hitting prime time this week (albeit on the Sundance Channel) in a reality TV show called "The Hill."
Blurbs about the show have appeared in the national press for the past month or so about the show, but William E. Gibson, the Sun-Sentinel's Washington correspondent, gave us the real scoop in Sunday's newspaper. The "refreshing" show is about Wexler and his staff's "youthful idealism." Here's the best passage from Gibson's wax job:
The first of six half-hour episodes ends in teary-eyed defeat, with the staff slumped on couches watching election returns that keep Bush in the White House.These scenes recall the spirit of the youthful legions who backed George McGovern's presidential campaign of 1972, the anti-war crusade of Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and the generational passing of the torch that came with the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960.
What garbage Gibson spews. Let's get this straight: Wexler not only voted for the war in Iraq, he was one of the most passionate believers in the war in all of Congress. Here's a quote from Wexler that appeared in the Sun-Sentinel on April 14, 2002:
"[T]he only element that gets respect in the Middle East is force, is power. And ultimately the United States can bring to bear a level of power in this region that no one else can. So when Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Jordan and the Israelis and Yasser Arafat realize that George Bush is just dead serious about going into Iraq and mopping [Saddam Hussein] out of the place and cleaning Iraq out of their complicity with terrorism, then I think you'll see even a more constructive attitude toward the peace process."
That's called foresight, people. You can't buy that kind of intelligence. Aren't you glad he and his anti-war, idealistic staff are still up there in D.C. "fighting the good fight," as Gibson so dutifully quotes Wexler's press secretary, Lale Mamaux? Care for another doozy? Okay, here's a line about invading Iraq that Wexler tossed out to the Sentinel before the war:
"The issue is really not that complicated. We know that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons."
Brilliant, Bobby. Just brilliant. But there's more. Here's the way former Miami Herald reporter Dan Devise (now with the Washington Post) quoted Wexler just before the war:
"I am convinced that Iraq is the epicenter of the terrorist network in the Middle East. I think the possibility of Saddam Hussein attacking American interests in one way or another is not only likely but is imminently real. And it doesn't have to be by a missile flying over an ocean. It could be in the form of a chemical put in an air conditioning system. It could be on the bottom of a cargo ship coming in to Port Everglades."
My God, Wex -- I'm never going to look at my Trane the same way again. What about our cereal -- did Saddam have access to our Lucky Charms too?
These are all documented Wexlerisms, folks. But he wasn't just a cheerleader for the war; the man was a strategist. For one thing, he simply loves Turkey (a fact that doesn't sit well with the Turks' unfortunate victims of mass murder and genocide, the Kurds and Armenians). So he traveled to Turkey a bunch of times to convince that nation to join in on the fun in Iraq. He guaranteed that Turkey would go along. It, of course, did not.
Tough break, Bobby, for all of us, really. But at least the unbridled debacle in Iraq has taught the Congressman, once and for all, that war, especially unwarranted and overwhelming aggression that wrecks an entire country's infrastructure, is a bad thing, right? Yes, that young and vital staff surely worked tirelessly to promote a cease-fire when Israel started bombing the bejesus out Lebanon. Wexler, in his hard-earned wisdom, knew this new war was another disaster-in-the-making, a piece of madness that will be best remembered in the annals of warfare for the fact that more children were massacred than soldiers.
Nah.
Our rep from Boca stood with Bush again and opposed a cease-fire. Instead he gave his "unequivocal support" to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, whose political career is in tatters after the odious operation that weakened Israel and, if anything, emboldened the terrorists of Hezbollah. Wexler's grand gesture was to fly to Israel to show everyone he was standing "shoulder-to-shoulder" with the missile strikes against Lebanon that killed more than a thousand people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
And just wait 'til it's time to invade Iran, kids! Wexler will be on that like flies on a Baghdad body bag.
That's right. The truth is that Wexler, on the world stage, is nothing but another death-loving sociopath. You think Bobby Redford knew all that stuff before he inked the deal for the show? You think he cares?
Ah, who cares, anyway? I'll still watch the show. I can't get enough of this reality stuff. And I heard that a female staffer dates a -- say it ain't so! -- Republican and Wexler's gay chief of staff and his partner are planning to adopt! This is just the kind of diversion -- ah, I mean, entertainment -- that we need from Congress right now.
