He's got the black leather jacket thing going, but it appears that Jesse Ventura's , er, Gov. Ventura's skin has not grown any thicker since he left office.
In his umpteenth appearance of Larry King Live Wednesday night on CNN, where he and director Oliver Stone defended Stone's sympathetic documentary on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ("South of the Border") Ventura took some familiar swipes and the "mainstream media" and insisted that U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fl., call him "governor." In an exchange that's gotten lots of Internet traffic today, Mack, not a fan of the film, referred to the former Minnesota governor (as The King often does) as "Jesse." Oops. "First of all, Representative, it's governor," Ventura intoned. "Thank you." "You're welcome," Mack said, a grin on his face. "There you go," Ventura said. "I prefer my title, just as you do yours." "You can call me Connie, Jesse," Mack replied. (Yes, he said "Jesse" again!) Mack was on a video feed, not in the studio, or who knows what would have happened next. But it wouldn't be the last time the discussion of the film turned back to, well, the ex-governor. "I went and saw Oliver Stone's film this weekend and I think this film should be mandatory viewing for every high school senior in the United States of America. That's how strong I feel about it," Ventura said. "Because the key to Oliver's film is not Hugo Chavez. The key to this film is the lying manipulation of our mainstream media and how they flagrantly lie to us. And I'm a person that knows the experience well, being an independent…" This served as the rhetorical springboard for a list of old Ventura grievances, including a few about the media jackals he so derided in his single term as governor. Chief example: The media accused him of "profiteering" from his office with his autobiography, but Sen. John McCain didn't get the same treatment. He also made clear that he's still steamed about former Bush administration figure Otto Reich, who, Ventura recalled, accused him of going to Cuba in 2002 to "sample the sex trade." And never apologized. But mostly he lamented the sorry state of the media, which, he said, once acted as "the fourth branch of government." (?) It's not clear if he includes CNN in the lying, manipulating mainstream pack. But if the cable network was doing its job, apparently it would be chasing the stories Ventura tells on truTV, which runs "Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura." Among them: Evidence that the September 11th attacks may have been an inside job; how forces within the government have revived a program that uses mind control techniques to turn ordinary citizens into programmed assassins; and how a small group of international elites meets once a year at a luxury hotel to decide how they will run the world (From the program's Web site: "It's believed they plan to thin out the population through disease-and vaccines.") Here's the video:
