Mom, Fuck Israel; This is the Worst Thing the Times Has Ever Done.
Benjamin | Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 12:05AM 
I just keep staring at this thing over and over again like it's 9/11 footage.
Holy christ, could this be as fucking bad as it seems?
In this Sunday's Op-Ed section, the New York Times posted a Roger Cohen song parody so bad that Weird-Al Yankovic should un-friend Roger Cohen and kick him in the nuts.
He was trying to perform y2k maintenance on Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire as a tribute to Obama, though I'm sure the president-elect would have preferred to receive a simple Don't Be Homesick Gift Crate from Zabars.
Please do me a favor and take a second to compare the first stanza of Roger Cohen's song with the original:
Billy Joel:
Harry Truman, Doris Day, red China, Johnnie Ray
South pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe Dimaggio
Roger Cohen:
Bill Clinton, Tina Fey, capitalist China, O.J.,
Asia rising, Facebook, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Please please please try to sing it.
You fucked it up.
So now, is the word capitalist meant to be fit into the same one syllable as red in the Billy Joel version?
Who's supposed to sing it then, an auctioneer, or the speed-reading infomercial guy?
Enough, I'm disgusted by this - just go read the rest of it. It's a disgrace to Songwriters and Serious Journalists everywhere. Walter Cronkite and Hal David are both rolling over in their graves, if in fact they're not still living; dunno and I'm too lazy to google.
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Reader Comments (2)
When was the last time the mainstream American news media conducted anything in any sort of manner that didn't treat you like some rube? That's exactly what they assume you are a dumb ass rube who needs journalism to be dumb downed and spoon fed to you in stupid attempts at wittiness that show just how out of touch they are with you, as member of a modern global village where you can find serious journalism at the touch of a button. This is what mainstream news media thinks you need to be preoccupied with instead of actual news, silly attempts at ironic parody. I bet he put facebook in to show how he's still relevant and with it. The worst thing about it is he thinks he being edgey, ironic, and making some profound commentary on our times like he's George Carlin. Is it any wonder why American newspapers are losing out to the internet where people can find real journalism from globally respected news organizations?
Well said, Benjamin.
@Danny - word! Also well said!