Ah, a cozy Sunday night spent toggling between Britney Spears’s expectedly disappointing performance on MTV’s Video Music Awards and early word of Gen. David Petraeus’s expectedly disappointing – to those hoping for a rapid draw down of forces overseas, at least — “report on Iraq” that our dear “Austria, Australia, what’s the dif?” President will pretty much base all of his future expectedly disappointing decisions on.
Both of these media hotspots are shaping up in the mind as almost miraculously opaque; the twin poles of current American culture — celebrity and violent hubris — apexed in such highly anticipated but awkwardly non-eventful performances that the status quo can only feel impelled to continue (dribble, dribble): Ms. Spears giving us tottering, soulless blah-horridness that will provide more WTF grist for her rumor mill$ …
Praying for coverage. Screen grab from mtv.com
….and General Petraeus giving us simply a slight blah torque on Bush’s “stay the course.” (Petraeus’s recommendations before Congress tomorrow, reportedly, will be to withdraw one surge battalion by December and four more by next August – a minutely faster timetable than Bush’s “experts” had been predicting.) Of couse, Britney’s decisions haven’t killed thousands — or have they?