Cruel and Usual Punishment

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Weingarten's Experiment in Action

Investigative humorist Gene Weingarten endures 24 hours of constant punditry, and lives to write about it.

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Limbaugh mocks Obama mercilessly for what he sees as the thinness of his message and the mooing, unquestioning devotion of his supporters. That's all fair game, and Limbaugh prosecutes it with bite, flair and humor. But there's this, this . . . thing he sometimes does -- how did I not notice it before? -- when he pronounces the candidate's last name. He lowers his voice a register and booms it out from his chest, drawing out each syllable. I'd taken it as just a theatrical embellishment, but now I see it for what it is. Rush is reducing Obama's name to an African tribal chant.

"O-bahh-mahh." He makes it sound like: Booga booga. Yo' Mama.

Now, that's ugly.

I'm right. I know I'm right. I'm so right.

I lean back in my chair, at peace again.

At war, again.

Rush sucks.

HOUR 10.

It won't stop, or even slow. It's getting worse.

On CNN's "Situation Room," lefty Donna Brazile and righty Cheri Jacobus are yelling over each other so loudly that it's impossible to hear what the subject is. Something about Mitt Romney, I think.

In the blog Real Clear Politics, the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger says Obama is too gloomy about America.

On more than one TV station, Hillary decries politicians who campaign by issuing packaged sound bites, then offers this: "Some people think words are change. Well, you and I know better. Words are cheap." Nicely done, Hillary, at 7.5 seconds.

Hotline says that polls tell it that some congressman named Harris is in good shape in his district, but someone else named Kirk isn't.

On the radio, Glenn Beck says he knows he will be called a racist, but he is still going to predict that Obama will bankrupt the country.

All this is beginning to take a toll. I want to take a break, get away. But stuff keeps happening. Important stuff.

The Little Green Footballs blog says the mainstream media is shamefully ignoring a report that an Obama campaign staffer in Houston had a Cuban flag and a poster of Che on her wall. The lefty press would be all over it, the blog says, if a McCain staffer had a Confederate flag.

Beck speculates that recent advances in the Mexican economy might be part of an ongoing, diabolical plot to create a European Union-type economy in North America by collapsing ours while boosting Mexico's, until they are in line and we can use the same currency. "Doesn't it suck to figure things out?" Beck asks. "The truth matters!"

Someone is saying somewhere that someone is cravenly misleading someone about something, and I get up from my chair, put on my coat, take the elevator to the lobby and walk out into the street.

It's a nice evening. Not too cold. People walking. No one seems to be arguing with anyone. Nice people, walking. Here's a person.

"Sir, do you think that McCain is going on the offensive against Obama in a subtle but devious attempt to ensure that Hillary is his opponent because her negatives continue to outweigh his negatives but Obama beats him by four to six points, according to the latest 24-hour polling data?"

"Uh, I, uh, never really thought about it," says Anthony Booker of Falls Church, backing away.

Here's another person.

"Ma'am, do you think the congressional minority was disrespecting the memory of Tom Lantos, or were they victimized by a deceitful trap sprung by the majority in a cynical gambit to gain political points, with implications for the national elections?"

"Excuse me?"

I repeat the question. This is Grace Sims of Arlington.

"Well, Mr. Lantos was a wonderful man. But I don't know what you are talking about. I don't even have a computer at home."

"You don't?"

"No. I can't afford one right now."

"Ma'am, you are blessed."

"I am?"

"Blessed!"

"Okay."

When I return to my dungeon, my step is a little lighter. The real world is okay. It will all be over soon. Only 12 hours to go.

ON CNN'S "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT," listeners taking the nightly poll are only in 85 percent agreement with Lou's position, apparently because the question is phrased imprecisely, with a double negative, and people have gotten confused about what they were supposed to say. (Lou almost always gets 95 to 97 percent agreement because his polls generally feature yes-no questions that read like this: "Do you think America should forfeit its future by opening the borders to illegal, chimichanga-chomping busboys?") On MSNBC, Tucker Carlson wonders if The Clintons can make another comeback.

On Fox, someone else is wondering the same thing.

Things are going normally, if numbingly. Then I turn on a radio talk show host named Michael Savage.

Savage is asserting that his sources have told him that Obama owes his candidacy to the support of gay men and that Clinton is bankrolled by "big lesbian money." But, mostly on this night, Savage wants to discuss a radio talk-show competitor of his named Bernie Ward. Savage admits he despises Ward because Ward is an ultra-liberal and also because, at some point in the distant past, Ward tried to hurt Savage professionally in some unspecified way. Savage says he is driven by vengeance and never forgets his enemies.

Tonight, he is gloating because Ward has lost his job and possibly his future freedom. He has been charged with distributing child pornography, has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial later in the year. Savage tells his listeners that he has obtained the police report in the federal case and that it contains details of perversities so repugnant, so obscene, so salacious that a recitation of the facts would nauseate any decent person who hears them.

Then he wonders aloud whether he should read them on the air.

He's not sure. It would pain him to do so, he says gravely, but maybe some social good could come of it or something. He's leaning against it, he says, but is going to leave it up to the listeners. So, he invites callers to vote on whether they want to hear the really filthy, lurid, lewd, licentious stuff.

I click on an online thesaurus to find a stronger word for "shameless." Nothing quite does the job.

Savage is evidently taken by surprise when a few of his early callers actually say they don't want to hear it. He even argues with one of them: Well, you could just turn it off, no?

At this point, for the first time all day, I have muted all the TVs and put my laptop aside. I'm fascinated, if not in a good way. I feel complicit, like a spectator at a hanging.

Inevitably, listeners force his reluctant hand, and Savage begins to dish the dirt. Much of what he reads is a transcript of a 2004 chat room conversation between Ward and a dominatrix who calls herself "Sexfairy." The facts are, indeed, disturbing. In skin-crawling detail, Ward explained to his online dominatrix that he is sexually aroused by young teenage children, including his own kids and their friends. He claimed he has masturbated in their presence. At one point, he allegedly sent the woman a photo showing two minors in a sexual situation with an adult. That's the point at which Sexfairy went to the cops.

What isn't clear is whether this is the truth or some sleazy fantasy world Ward has created for his online persona: Savage grudgingly allows for the second possibility, which is, in fact, Ward's defense. Ward doesn't contest the accuracy of the transcript; he says that he was role-playing. (Less plausible is his contention that this was all innocent research for a book on hypocrisy.) Even accepting that this conversation was fantasy, Savage says, the facts show the man is a pervert, is liable to do anything and needs to be separated from his kids, pronto.

In the next few minutes, Savage is going to elevate this disingenuous personal vendetta into the realm of political pornography. He'll be uttering hate speech, and, as such, I don't know if I should share it here. It's absolutely obscene.

Tell you what -- I'll have you vote on whether you want to hear it. Okay?

Okay, you have spoken. I'm only doing this because you demand it.

Savage segues from the pathetic case of Bernie Ward into an attack on liberalism in general. He says that Ward is no aberration, that liberals and progressives are closeted, self-loathing sexual deviants who take bleeding-heart positions on public policy to atone for the filthy urges that haunt their minds and poison their souls.

"Liberalism is a mental disorder, and it is also a cover," he says. "All this do-gooderness is a cover for very, very, very evil deeds."

He continues: "You say, 'Are you generalizing?' The answer is no. I have long tried to comprehend the madness of the American left. I have long tried to figure out what motivates them to hate the family, the church, the police, the military. In fact, why they hate the male, the patriarch. The answer is because they know they're no good, they're know they're dirty and are afraid of being found out. They're afraid Daddy will punish them for what they're doing."

Liberals and progressives, he says, are "degenerates" who are "on an express train to Hell."

How can Savage possibly cap this performance? Ah, here we go:

"I am warning you that many of your progressive friends--the permissive ones, the ones who laugh at conservatives, the ACLU types, the antiwar types? If they have children, I am warning you to watch your children when they go over to their houses."

When he finally cuts to a commercial, I turn him off. Now everything is muted. There is a brief, eerie silence, and I can actually think. I don't listen to talk radio much, so I'm not quite sure what to make of all this.

Who is Michael Savage, and can there possibly be more than a handful of feebs who tune him in?

I check. Michael Savage is the third-most popular syndicated radio host in the country. He has 10 million listeners, which is more people than read the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, combined.

NINE HOURS TO GO.

Laura Ingraham is back, this time on TV. So is O'Reilly, and so is Joe Madison, whom we last heard at 6 a.m. Do pundits never sleep?

On CNN, Slate editor Jacob Weisberg says Mike Huckabee is on an ego trip. Slate's pretty liberal, so I buy it.

Here's Ann Coulter. I'm not listening to what she says. Don't care.

I'm exhausted, but taking sides again. Savage put me there.

Switching stations. Here's Keith Olbermann doing an extended editorial on MSNBC. Olbermann's a reliable lefty, so I listen.

His subject is a rift between President Bush and the House Democrats over whether to extend a bill giving the government the right to wiretap suspected terrorists without a warrant. Bush wants the bill to exempt the telecom companies from lawsuits for having shared customer data with the government under dubious authority in the past. The Democrats don't want this exemption and didn't put it in the bill. Because of this impasse, Bush wouldn't sign it, and the bill expired. Each side says it's the other's fault. Bush claims this puts the nation at grave risk; the Dems say that's nonsense, and that this is just the usual scare talk. The issue is probably a little too important to be a tempest in a teapot, but it's also not that big a deal, because everyone knows it's mostly without substance -- grandstanding and brinksmanship on both sides. Call it a tempest in a crockpot.

Olbermann begins strongly, addressing himself directly to Bush that he's only protecting his cronies, the powerful telecoms. Yay!

Now he compares the bill Bush wanted to other bad laws, including the Alien and Sedition Acts, which I actually think might be just a little over the . . .

Uh, now he's comparing it to . . . slavery.

Now he's addressing Bush directly, and he's . . . oh, God.

"If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend. You're a fascist! Get them to print you a T-shirt with FASCIST on it!"

Now he's, he's . . .

". . . and if there's one thing we know about Big Brother, Mr. Bush, it is that he is -- you are -- a liar!"

I've already checked the thesaurus, so I know there's no help there.

"You are a liar, Mr. Bush. And after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar!"

And:

"You said that the lives of countless Americans depend on you getting your way. This is crap! And you sling it with an audacity and a speed unrivaled by even the greatest political felons of our history!"

I mute it.

Silence again.

I send an e-mail to a friend who I know is online. This is what it says:

o s, s brtu dytpmh [rtdpm/

I realize I had my hands on the wrong position on the keyboard. I have to resend it. It says: "I am a very strong person," more of a plea than a statement of fact.

The room is still quiet. On Fox's "Hannity & Colmes," someone is yelling.

McCain is on "Larry King Live." He's saying something, and Larry seems to be agreeing wholeheartedly.

On my far right is the TV tuned to C-SPAN, which I have ignored all day for the simple reason that nothing important ever seems to be happening. Now some guy is talking. He's a Tennessee congressman. He's labeled "Zach Wamp." Ha-ha. Good enough! I switch this to the main TV.

Zach is saying something about earmarks. He's saying that before we debate earmarks, we need to define what they are. I'm looking at him, and there's something. About. His. Face.

He's got an oddly prominent ridge in the middle of his left ear. You can see it!

I image-Google the human pinna. Yes, Zach has got an extra line there, sort of. He has an EAR MARK.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Hahahahahahaha.

Hahaha.

Ha.

Sniff.

Jon Stewart is pretty funny tonight, too.

TV DURING THE WEE HOURS is mostly a repetition of the identical news items from the day, the identical images, the identical sound bites. Here's Hillary again, talking cheaply about how talk is cheap; here's George again, walking down the White House path to the lectern; here's Anita Kay again, looking absolutely luscious. At 2 a.m., the male human mind is a cesspool.

My shoes are off. My tie is off. I'm taking some infantile comfort in a the feel of a stuffed panda someone has left around. I have just consumed my 12th or 14th cup of coffee.

It's only in these wee hours that I finally fully focus on C-SPAN, looking at the repeat of things I had no time to notice before, things that just seemed hopelessly beside the point. There's a report about a bill to display a national Braille tactile flag, a congresswoman congratulating the University of Memphis Tigers basketball team for a fine season, a clip of Rep. Grijalva welcoming Monsignor O'Keefe to give the day's blessing, and here's Zach Wamp again, and I laugh at his ear mark again.

And now here is more footage of the interminable memorial service of Tom Lantos, who escaped the Holocaust to build a life as an international advocate for human rights, only to be tragically foofahaha-ed in death. One of the congressman's granddaughters, a young woman named Chelsea Hedquist, is speaking, her voice in a slight tremolo:

"We would feel his love in the very way he hugged and kissed us, always holding on just a beat longer than we liked as small children . . .

(Laughter) "We would give anything for one of those infamous hugs and kisses right now."

It occurs to me that this is the first entirely convincing, unagendaed, completely genuine statement I have heard all day.

GEORGE KEEPS WALKING purposefully down that path. Hillary keeps decrying sound bites.

The BBC -- it's morning rush hour over there -- reports that Bush defends his record on Darfur. On C-SPAN, for the fourth time, an oil industry exec is busy explaining how he'd rather see ethanol made from biomass than from corn.

A blogger at Power Line News says Demo-crats are not serious about keeping America safe from attack.

Do you know how many volume bars it takes to turn a TV up to full shout? How many of those little bars show on the screen? I bet you don't 'cause you've never done it 'cause you've never been in Hour 21, have you? It's 63 bars! The TV is blasting through the quiet washingtonpost.com building, and that's when I notice something big. Something transformational.

When you have a TV at full blast, and there's a talking head, you hear his intake of breaths in between sentences really, really clearly. Ha-ha! And if you listen carefully for those, as though that was the important part of communication, you wind up not really hearing anything else! It is just a person gasping for breath! Ha-ha. The effect is especially great with Nancy Pelosi.

In this manner, I entertain myself satisfyingly for 10 minutes.

JUST MORE THAN THREE HOURS LEFT. I'm listening to the radio's "Nightside Project," with Ethan Millard and Alex Kirry. They're reprising the Lantos walkout and analyzing who was disrespectful to whom; they're back on the Hillary Clinton speech bite, how she's got solutions, not words; they're discussing HD DVD versus Blu-ray technology, a subject I understand not at all.

The DJs seem like nice guys. They are asking listeners for Valentine's Day stories, things that happened on Valentine's Day, things they want on Valentine's Day, stuff like that. This is a hip show, and they want text messages only. They'll read the ones they like on the air.

I take out my cellphone and begin to tap in a message. My fingers aren't working well, and it takes 15 minutes to get this down:

"Gentlemen:

I have been alone in a room for almost 24 hours with 6 TVs, a laptop and two radios, listening to and watching and reading only political shows and pundits and blogs, sometimes monitoring four or five things at the same time. Just to see if it can be done.

I'll tell you it can be, but I cannot tell you how horrible it is. It rattles the very center of your being. If you care about the state of humankind, it fills you with despair. We are as a people bleak and hostile and suspicious, filled with senseless partisanship and willing to believe anything and everything about anyone. We are full of ourselves and we hate. And we do it 24-7.

Would you be willing, as a sign of compassion and empathy, to do the unthinkable and broadcast right now, as a Valentine to me, 20 seconds of blessed dead air?

Complete silence. Just read my text and then say . . . nothing. Twenty seconds.

Just to show it can be done."

I SEND IT IN.

It turns out, no, it can't be done.

Gene Weingarten is a staff writer for the Magazine. He can be reached at weingarten@washpost.com. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at noon.