The Reaction: Defending Martin Lewis... It's satire, stupid!

By J. Thomas Duffy

Quite the red-tinged firestorm going on out in the rightside blogosphere, over a post by humorist, commentator, producer, radio host, and, self-described "The World’s LEAST-Reserved Englishman", Martin Lewis.

Lewis's post, over on The Huffington Post -- "General Pace, You Can Save the US - by Arresting Bush for "Conduct Unbecoming" -- has been garnering such bon mots as "HuffPo Calls For Military Coup In USA", "Your Saturday Dose Of Dumbass...", "BE WARNED, STUPIDITY CAN BE A CONTAGIOUS CONDITION!", "Huffington Post Publishes Call for American Coup", and the like (you can visit Memorandum for the links; if they are no longer posted, as Memorandum refreshes constantly, you can use the Search Archives and plug in August 26, 2007, 7:50 AM to pull them up).

First things first, Lewis states in the post, and assuming you have good vision, and can read, have the proper attention span, etc, that he is not advocating for a coup, or anything like it:

"To be crystal clear -- I am NOT advocating or inciting you to undertake any illegal act, insurrection, mutiny, putsch or military coup. You are an honorable patriotic man.

I am NOT advocating or inciting you to interfere with any of the civilian duties of the President. That would not be a legal action by you."

It's right there. It's not hidden, and, as you can plainly see, it not cryptic, or otherwise written in some kind of code.

And Martin reiterates that, repeatedly, in the Comment Section.

The practicality of removing The Commander Guy as the Commander-In-Chief, I will leave up to military legal experts, and the Congress. There certainly are issues to be dealt with, succession, et all (after all, we can't remove The Decider, only to elevate Darth Vader to the Oval Office -- the expense of converting his Secret Bunker from a Vice President's to a President's would be a nightmare on the budget)

Here's what I think...

Too many readers took the piece as a serious suggestion ... I read it, between tears of laughter, as brilliant, deftly-written satire.

Perhaps, Lewis is speaking to the deadweight, table-less Congress, for not taking up the well-justified, and Constutionally-mandated, issue of Impeachment ... Or, he's slapping at General Pace, for his comments going out the door, and his years of being a cheerleader for the Bush-Cheney Invasion-and-Occupation of Iraq policy...

Or, as happens with some frequency, an idea for a post pops into your head, and practically writes itself... You take a seemingly normal news story or situation, and write it straight, logical, but with an absurd twist that hugs tightly to that line of "is it real or is it fake".

And let me state, for the record, I am not speaking for Martin Lewis. I have never spoken to Martin Lewis. Martin Lewis did not ask, or suggest, to me (or anyone else that I can see) to defend him -- he's more-than-capable of doing that himself. Martin Lewis (or The Huffington Post) is not paying me, or providing any compensation whatsoever, to defend the post. I am not a defender of Martin Lewis, nor do I play one on TV.

The Garlic, has, from time-to-time, tagged (linked) posts that Lewis has written, including a hysterical Bush Meets Monty Python! back in January.

And The Garlic did comment on Martin's HuffPo Pace piece, offering Mr. Lewis that The Garlic had its own suggestion for another avenue towards this same goal:

Garlictorial: Happy 4th of July ... Okay, It May Be Down To This ... Citizen's Arrest!

Whether it is General Peter Pace, or some average citizen (and, heaven-forbid, if Congress actually does something), please, someone, take that first, big, bold step ... As Lewis writes, and The Garlic certainly endorses, "please save the US".

Update/Bonus Link - Martin Lewis Reponds!

"Let's Twist Again": Right-wing Bloggers Smear HuffPost