hollywood, stfu

Everyone hold your applause. Like MacArthur's promise at Corregidor I return to this bitch. And true to form I'm going to blog about politics, but not about the presidential race. Soon you will get the Orlando Magic offseason preview/draft prospectus but right now I'm going to make some dipshit Hollywood types bite the curb.

One of my biggest pet peeves is someone who jams a political message down your throat from a position where they have no business doing this. I could digress into a long post on this subject a la the Vocation Lectures, but I wont. Thank me later. And though in my experience its mainly liberals who do this (think of your college professors), conservatives do it too. Its basically a false pretenses argument- you have to go to class to learn about history, but your professor takes the opportunity to give a captive audience their political views. More egregious is the entertainment industry. You sit down to watch a movie, and you have to put up with a caricatured, stilted view of reality that reflects the political and ideological predilections of its creator(s).

At bottom this is about vanity- people become so convinced of their own importance (because they make good movies) that they feel the need to use this newfound authority to "speak out." To take a particularly pitiful example, think of Robert Redford. The man knows his way around a film. But when he moves over into the producer or director's chair because hes got some societal or political ill he wants to address, very quickly he finds out that the audience generally doesn't share his view of the world. This is America, we want to see car crashes, shoot-outs, explosions, tits, and shiny things (not necessarily in that order). We dont want to have to sit through two hours of hectoring and brow-beating by some narcissistic, solipsistic ass. Fuck.

Which brings me to what started this whole bitch session. Last night I watched The Andromeda Strain on A&E. Not that one, this one. I was pumped because dudes generally like movies about infections, but man was this one bad. The production values and all were ok, not great but ok. The CGI was shit, which was surprising for a project produced by Ridley Scott. There is also a painfully obvious 28 Days Later rip off, but you will have to sit through this mess to see that one. On the good side, one guy cuts his own head off with a chainsaw which was pretty rad.

But worst of all, the creators were so far up their own asses that they didnt see what a joke their project was becoming. They were so intent on creating a false (not to mention insultingly stupid) dichotomy between liberals=good/conservatives=bad that they fucked up a very promising project. Look. You've got an organism that kills within seconds. Its bad enough. You dont need to puff it up with bullshit subplots about government malfeasance, enviromental degredation and destruction, and corporate 'ner do welling. The novel was so good because everything political was ultra subtle and very ambiguous. In this miniseries, it was about as subtle as kick to the tailbone.

In the first half an hour they trotted out these predictable and trite cliches:

1. A Republican Administration is in charge. Why bother with actually doing any of the heavy lifting of writing, character development, etc... when you can just use your sure shorthand for incompetence and evil?

2. The sinister defense secretary is a conscious mix of Rumsfeld and Cheney. The perfect villian willing to do everything necessary to protect Andromeda, even lie to the President. There are scattered references to other biological disasters, e.g. "you remember Houston, don't you?" that apparently occurred under his stewardship. Thanks for spelling that out. We now know that he is a win-at-all-costs, bottom line type of guy with extreme, unchecked power and no conscience.

3. The NSA is recording everyone's phone conversations, tracking people down, and executing them. The idea of a rouge intelligence agency secretly controlling everything? Well, at least no one can say you're not original.

4. The President is currently trying to drill for minerals near undersea vents over the objections of environmentalists. Also, the company that is doing the drilling has some financial relationship with the president. I don't remember the exact name of the company (it was on screen for about 3 seconds) but i do remember it rhymed with Halliburton. Seriously.

5. The microbiology team assembled to combat the virus. In the book, it was all white men. OK, it was 1969, perhaps thats a little dated, if reflective of the time. But in 2007 the team is comfortably multicultural/multiracial/gender inclusive- a Hispanic man, a white woman, an Asian man, a black woman, and a gay white man (which actually is an interesting riff on the Odd Man Hypothesis). It looked like a goddamn Volkswagen commercial.

Keep in mind, all this occurred in the FIRST HALF HOUR of a four-hour miniseries. As it goes on you can see some more. Look, someone has to be the bad guy and, given how they've run the country into the ground over the past 8 years it might as well be the Republicans. But having this constantly and crudely shoved down your throat really ruins what could have been a really interesting remake.

Obama: Christian.

Maybe it's the Muslim-rumor emails. Maybe it's the speeches. But no other Democrat could put out a mailer like this without getting laughed at. In fact, it'd be hard for a Republican to put something this overt out.

With Barack, it just seems so natural...

two severely broken cankles

so Hillary, you like symbolism? So I guess if the filly in the derby breaks down and has to be put out of her misery after losing to Big Brown, then that means...

clinton is nixon...nixon is clinton?

The Horror. I agree with Marty Peretz...guhhhh...a shower and apricot scrub may not even be enough to purge this grimy feeling.

There definitely are paralells here, between Clinton and Nixon. Both are deeply unhappy, secretive, defensive, and vengeful. They are dour people with really distasteful traits. Yet at the same time are always looking for affirmation and a chance to prove to people that once you get to know them, they are really nice people. Witness Hillary instructing some of her canvassers: "Oh, just knock on the door and say, ‘She is really nice,’ ” Mrs. Clinton said. “Or you could say, ‘She is not as bad as you think.’" The problem, of course, is that their character flaws usually intrude on anyone actually wanting to invest the time and energy to get to know them.

Real Foreign Affairs Experience

Its been a few weeks since dudeweekend took Barack Obama into their tender mouths so I guess we're overdue. As loyal readers of dudeweekend (all one of them) will know, we have relentlessly hated on the pantsuited monster for all manner of her bullshit. But the one issue that really sticks in my crawl is this whole recent line of attack that she has more foreign policy experience than Obama owing to her time as first lady. Anyone with half a brain knows this is ridiculous even without Hillary lying to them about snipers and ducking for cover. But lately Barack Obama put his finger on another really important point. He said

"When Senator Clinton brags 'I've met leaders from eighty countries'--I know what those trips are like! I've been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There's a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then--you go."

This is exactly right. It reminds me of a dipshit I see at meetings all around DC of assorted Very Important People. He is always shooting his mouth off about "the situation" in Iraq or somesuch, always bragging about what he knows, who he knows, and how he knows it, how his information is much better than yours, because you dont have the "sources" he does. Honest to god, I was at a meeting where he challenged a quite senior defense department official and insinuated that the official was being played because Mr. Dipshit's "sources" in that country had told him something different. This type of crap is why I hate DC.

This type of stinking asshole is actually pretty common in DC. Its the guy who jets into a country, takes a limo past the stinking slums and narrow alleyways, checks in to his 5 star hotel, goes downstairs to the conference center and attends a seminar with assorted government bigwigs (all of whom speak English and wear nice suits), then on the way back up to his hotel room he stops and asks the bellhop "so what do you think about X?" And then the douchebag gets in his limo, goes to the airport, and goes home, where he tells everyone who will listen what the mood on "the street" in said country is.

Which brings me back to Barry O. If youve read his autobiography (and really, there is no excuse if you havent) you'll know that Obama has actually spent time in a foreign country. Not 3 nights in a five star hotel with a post-conference dinner at the attached Ruth's Chris, but living in a sprawling Indonesian suburb, a dusty African capital, or a teeming South Asian metropolis. This is real knowledge of foreign affairs, tangible knowledge of how people think and act in different contexts, based on rationales sunk deep into cultural and social networks. This is the polar opposite of Hillary Clinton and her "knowledge" of foreign affairs, filled as it is with obsequious foreign officials, scheming businessmen, and slick spokesmen, people who have more in common with her philandering husband than they do with their countrymen who work at the fucking noodle stand down the road.

Its this superficial, wishful thinking type of "knowledge" that leads people to argue that "we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" in Iraq or that Hamas can't be popularly elected because, hey, Mahmoud Abbas and all of his cronies speak English and drink whiskey, and we like them, so obviously the Palestinian people should also. With a few exceptions, this is the knowledge of the Bush Administration. Its the knowledge of McCain and Clinton as well.

Just a thought...

I wish I could post this without knocking Stan's DMX post down from the top spot, because that needs to sit and simmer for a bit while the messages of Barack Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech sink into some truly ignorant fuckers...

But, I have been mulling over another take-away from his speech today. I realize that the goals of the speech were to address a major issue that still casts an ugly, unfortunate pall over our country and to seal a gap in his campaign's call to unity. However, I am also wondering if this is the much needed discussion that we need to have concerning American foreign policy. I am certainly not a pacifist, but it strikes me that the nuance that Obama sees in race relations in America is reflected in his desire to talk to countries like Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Some of the notes that he struck upon in his speech also come up over and over in the study of "extremism" or "Islamist militancy." The means and statements of those movements are detestable, but nonetheless the anger lingers. The rhetoric and goals of extremist movements are reprehensible, but their popularity is borne of the legitimate concerns of people in some truly failing societies.

The speeches of Jeremiah Wright were absolutely ignorant in their tone and message. And, I realize the danger of trying to formulate a foreign policy message around a speech that was in many ways trying to correct a lapse in judgment on behalf of Obama. The America-hating sentiments from which those speeches SEEMED to originate are not the stuff of heady international affairs discussions. However, what Obama seems to recognize is the profoundly difficult nature of being a leader (whether of a congregation, a community, a city, or a country) requires a perspective from all angles. This type of thinking is not easily translated into political speeches, which this certainly was, but it is a deep level of analysis that America must beg for, for the sake of our future as a shining city upon a hill.

I am certainly in no way trying to equate the struggle of African-Americans and other minorities with those of Islamist militants and anti-West, anti-Israel hatred. But, I would simply like to point out as a student of foreign policy that this message can resonate globally as well. We can choose the politics of 100 years in Iraq, of continued war, of continued divisiveness. Or, we can choose the politics that at least hears the other side out and tries to grasp why their message is so vitriolic. I am all for throwing Osama bin Laden under the bus, but to conduct an effective counteroffensive against his rhetoric is to acknowledge that it has an origin that is neither dead nor the past. Someone who can embrace that level of nuance and critical thinking is the one I want answering the phone at 3AM.

delegate and popular vote lead...u haz?

Alright. Im sorry to bump Ratticus's two excellent posts with more boring crap about politics, but this shit needs to be said. Remember a few days ago when the Clinton campaign floated the idea of a joint Clinton-Obama ticket? Now they are shocked, shocked that this idea was considered. Clinton staffer and marble-gargler extrordinaire Howard Wolfson today says “We do not believe at this point that Sen. Obama has passed that key commander-in-chief test” that Clinton would require for a veep. WTF is going on here? Hey Howie, here are some numbers for you:

Pledged delegates (Obama +155)
Obama= 1378
Clinton= 1223

Total delegates (Obama +120)
Obama= 1588
Clinton= 1468

This one is also somewhat important:

Total votes (Obama +603,687)*
Obama= 13,025,003
Clinton= 12,421,316
*Iowa, Nevada, Washington & Maine Have Not Released Popular Vote Totals

Given Obama's insurmountable lead in delegates, and likely in popular votes as well, where do the Clintons get off trying to position Obama as the veep? As one of the reliably hysterical New York tabloids said, Clinton is trying to sell a house she doesn't own.