Canadian inspectors, Gore, Bush, and more.

A coalition of Canadian peace groups today announced their intention to send an international team of volunteer weapons inspectors into the United States later this winter. The coalition, Rooting Out Evil, are recruiting inspectors through their newly launched website, www.rootingoutevil.org.

“Our action has been inspired by none other than George W. Bush,” said Christy Ferguson, a spokesperson for the group. . . .”On the basis of President Bush’s guidelines, it is clear that the current U.S. administration poses a great threat to global security,” said Ferguson. “We’re following Bush’s lead and demanding that the U.S. grant our inspectors immediate and unfettered access to any site in the country–including all presidential compounds–so that we can identify weapons of mass destruction in this rogue state,” added David Langille. . . .

The actual inspection team that crosses the border will be comprised of prominent individuals from Canada and other countries.

Ha, ha, ha. Ho, ho, ho. The Scrapbook especially likes that wry little joke about “prominent individuals from Canada.” And this one, too, from the organization’s aforementioned website: If the Bush administration refuses to comply with this latest peacecanuck demand, then “we will assemble as many volunteer weapons inspectors as possible at a major border crossing between the U.S. and Canada and attempt to cross into the U.S. on a mission of peace.” In which case “we will be greeted on the U.S. side by Americans who favor true global cooperation, an end to weapons of mass destruction, and a regime change in the U.S. at the next election.”

It could happen, we guess.

On the other hand, they might be greeted on the U.S. side by Americans who favor kicking them right in the ass. You never know.

And Now Some Homegrown Comedy

You noticed, perhaps, how Al Gore recently insisted to the Washington Post Magazine that had the true wishes of every Florida voter been perfectly expressed at the polls in 2000, then the fact that he is actually president of the United States right now wouldn’t be such a well-kept secret? Well, the secrets they are a-pouring out it seems, and the latest one to burst is that something has gone Terribly Wrong in President Gore’s America.

That would be the coup d’état that Republicans have lately effected in the U.S. media. In American journalism today, Gore now tells Josh Benson of the New York Observer, “there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican party. Fox News Network, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh. . . . Most of the media [have] been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this fifth column in their ranks.”

Okay, so the man makes a few technical errors. Rush Limbaugh speaks for no “institution” except his own. Gore is the only political professional in the universe who believes that the Washington Times has a “pervasive impact.” Readers curious to judge for themselves the extent to which the Republican party dominates cable news broadcasting might wish to watch any random five minutes–take your pick–of CNN.

But enough nitpicking. Let’s have a look at this “fifth column” business Gore refers to. Are purportedly right-leaning media operations committing treason? The enemy within? Fascinating. Surely President Gore will want to have his new Department of Homeland Security look into the matter without delay.

And while they’re at it, Tom Ridge’s boys will surely also be eager to investigate what the Observer’s Benson was cheeky enough to ask Gore about directly: “the ceaseless lampooning he continues to face from America’s columnists and commentators.” Gore has his own answer. “That’s postmodernism,” he says. “It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism.”

So that’s what that is. We thought it was just a reflection of the fact that Al Gore is a world-class weenie.

Also in the Observer

We admit it: There’s nothing we relish more than watching the Left give itself a poke in the eye. We refer, in particular, to Ron Rosenbaum’s latest New York Observer essay, “W. Isn’t Beelzebub, He’s Just a Corleone–But Michael or Fredo?”

“For much of the Left,” Rosenbaum writes, “dissent has degenerated into nothing more than incoherent, impotent Bush hatred.” But Rosenbaum has developed a certain grudging respect for the president. Bush is not, in fact, the Devil, he writes. Instead, Bush is a Corleone-family son from the Godfather. But which one? The president entered office as Fredo, hapless and feeble: “I’m smart! Not like everyone says I am. That I’m dumb!” Later, though, after 9/11, Bush “began demonstrating some of the sagacity of Michael.”

It works like this, according to Rosenbaum: The president “realizes the time has come to ‘settle all family business’ with terrorists. But in a very shrewd way. . . . Saddam has to be handled with a little more finesse than Afghanistan. So George W. gets the world thinking he’s morphed from Fredo to Sonny–the hotheaded unilateralist, so to speak–but it’s really Michael running the show. Bluffing a unilateral move . . . but bluffing it so compellingly that he gets the multilateralists of the world to join in on the dismantling of Saddam in order to prevent that crazy Sonny from knocking over the beautiful, multilateral house of cards they believe in.”

That’s pretty good, don’t you think? And here’s one that’s even better: Rosenbaum’s real-world casting suggestion for who should play Senator Pat Geary, the sleazeball pol from “Godfather II” is . . .

Yes! Al Gore.

The Scrapbook knew that it was him all along.

Things We Hate

Film critic David Denby, writing in the November 11 New Yorker about “8 Mile,” the allegedly inspirational rap-from-poverty movie starring the allegedly witty guttermouth Eminem:

“People who are convinced that Eminem is destroying America might want to consider the delicacy of the white-black friendships in ‘8 Mile.’ (Perhaps the specter of such friendships is what right-wingers actually hate most.)”

Um, actually no, Dave, that’s not even close to what we hate most. But here’s a hint: We’re not crazy about smirking New Yorker critics.

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