The Agora

In this week's issuse, 10 Questions for Dennis Miller shows that the man we thought was piercingly intelligent and pretentious is just incoherent.

When asked who in politics inspired him, Miller answered:

George Bush. He's been dealt an amazingly heavy hand of cards here, and I think he's doing his best ... Bush had the balls to start something that's not gonna be finished in his lifetime. The liquidation of terrorism is not gonna happen for a long time. But to take the first step? Ballsy.

While I disagree, this is an answer that is not wholly without merit. But the response to the follow-up question shows just how little rational thought Miller has put into his assessment of President Bush.

Explain how the war in Iraq makes sense to you as a response to 9/11.

Like there's no chance that the secular state of Iraq and Islamic fundamentalists cohabitate? They both think we're Satan. How about that as a nice point of departure for them car-pooling? I wish there was a country called al-Qaedia that we could have invaded, but there wasn't. (Saddam was) the only one who had a home address.

See, George Bush is ballsy because he takes on long, challenging task to rid the world of terrorists. But then he attacks a country with no confirmed ties to al-Qaeda because we know where it is.

Yeah, that's ballsy.

Miller is at his most pathetic answering a far more trivial question:

Why do we need another talk show?

Maybe we don't. This one, just when you think it's gonna be a topical news show, it'll be a humor show. And just when you think it's gonna be a humor show, it'll be a news show. We're not trying to blur the line; we're trying to obliterate it.

Already been done my friend. It's called The Daily Show, and if you take on Jon Stewart on his home turf, your ass will be beaten like a cheap pinata.

Of course the best Dennis Miller take-down remains The Miller's Crossing, a screamingly funny and viciously accurate confrontation between Dennis Miller (1988) and Dennis Miller (2003).
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