By rights, we should — and we’d like to be — heaping the love on Joe Queenan. He grew up in East Falls, graduated from St. Joe’s, and tries to shoot props back to Philly whenever he can, even if he is sometimes woefully off the mark. But if those were the only kinds of gaffes Queenan made while repping his hometown — and the fact he’s been all over the world yet has somehow never trained his accent away from its natural tone of a nagging Northeast Philly matron means that he’s always repping Philly, whether he wants to or not — it wouldn’t be too big of a deal. But the thing is, Queenan is just intellectually lazy. For years now, we’ve been catching his appearances as the “wild card” talking head here and there, and they all have one thing in common: Queenan can’t do heavy lifting of any kind. We caught him on the July 31 episode of Real Time With Bill Maher, where he appeared with Rachel Maddow, Niall Ferguson, and Michael Ware. He went down in flames almost as badly as Meghan McCain did earlier this summer. At right, watch Queenan fight his way out of the paper bag that is the claim that “he’ll give Obama high marks when the stock market hits 10,000, because that’s when people start to feel better.” (It’s followed by some wingnut commentary from a YouTube user who thinks that Wall Street stole the election for Obama, which, so long as we’re talking about old white men having no fucking idea what they are talking about, seems fitting.) Ferguson jumps all over Queenan, as does Maher. But like some drunk in an East Falls corner bar (who’s never been farther than an East Falls corner bar), Queenan stubbornly holds onto his claim long after it’s charmingly dippy. His retort? “Well, I never went to Harvard.” As fellow St. Joe’s alumni, we must tell you, dear reader: Not all of us are exactly this kind of asshole. Stuff like this kept happening on the show in dribs and drabs until finally, war correspondent Michael Ware looked at him like he was insane when he tried to turn the discussion about Afghanistan and Pakistan into something about women’s rights. Even Maddow cut him a look like he just farted.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 11:38 am.