Some people I know (Hi, Mom!) are terribly angry at the parade of Junior Mobsters on the yap shows last week, culminating in yesterday's WaaaahFest on the Sunday shows. The, um, tortured arguments and outright falsehoods of Andy "BushFriendForever" Card, Condi "NoOneCouldHave" Rice, et. al. have riled up the partisan sensibilities and general veritaphilia of more than one friend.
For me, though, the Dicks and Dons and Cons scrambling for camera time to push their version of "How I Got Him" couldn't be funnier. Or stupider.
Allow me to illustrate with a brief tale.
For many years, I made my living in the field of live music production--staging, lights and, most often, sound. I was the guy at the board who you went to and asked, "Can you turn down the guitar?" which wasn't even in the mix, as the guitar player was doing fine reinforcing himself with his triple Marshall stack.
Once, at a large, prestigious festival I regularly worked, we had on our stage a famed piano player, who had agreed to do a solo set. Easy-peasy, right? Piano and a vocal mic. No biggie.
Except for one thing: we had decided that morning to try a new mic technique, using piezo microphones mounted under the sound board rather than condenser mics on stands pointed down into the piano. Great idea. Got rid of the mics and stands messing up the sight lines for the audience and photogs. Brilliant.
One small problem, though: we found out, early in the set, that the piezos were terribly sensitive to sounds outside the piano, too, like, say, the stage monitors. This made it impossible to give the pianist a satisfactory monitor level without feedback. All through the set, he was looking over at me, giving the traditional finger-to-ear signal for more monitor. I pushed it as close to the feedback line as I could (and occasionally past), but knew it was a lame job.
After the set, I did something stupid. I went to the pianist and said, "I hope the sound was okay." He looked at me with disdain and proceeded to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that it was the worst stage mix he'd ever had to endure.
Now, why did I do that? I knew the mix sucked, I knew he knew the mix sucked. Why didn't I just apologize? It wasn't like I was going to look worse. I suppose I simply didn't want to admit that we'd dropped the ball.
I can understand why the Junior Mobsters are out there trying to lipstick up the pig of a job they did in Afghanistan, etc. It's really, really hard to admit when you've screwed the pooch. Feels lousy.
But guys--Andy, Dick, Don, Condi--you're not convincing anyone that you're secret superspies who set up an elaborate plan to catch bin Laden that President Obama just happened to pull the switch on. You're just reminding people that he did what you didn't.
Maybe you're right. Maybe the current president's appearances last week were an unseemly "victory lap."
But your futile attempts to change the narrative are worse--for you--than merely unseemly. They're sad. And really, really, really funny.
'Cause you know the only thing lamer than a victory lap?