The Iowa caucuses haven’t been held yet and already the crazy talk has started. This time it isn’t Howard Dean’s mental facilities that are under attack, this time around Karl Rove is hinting/suggesting/implying that Hillary is a bit ding-a-ling-ish in the belfry . . . and the rubes in town are on his side!
Does America’s free press step in and label it as the start of the smear season? Noooo! They keep a straight face while Rove shows how easily they can be manipulated.
Didn’t America’s greatest warrior president George W. Bush say “Fool me once . . . won’t get fooled again!”? Hah! Dubya has misunderestimated America’s intelligence level once again. Who needs quality journalism when the Internets will deliver a “second the motion” effort from Rove that reinforces John Stewart’s recent example of propaganda in action with a comedy bit titled “The Bitches Are Crazy!”
If Stewart and Rove agree, Hillary is toast.
Is California’s third term governor positioning himself for a new attempt at winning the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination?
Hillary can explain in minute detail how the past severe winter proves that global warming is here, but the voters in America aren’t going to fall for that example of Philadelphia lawyer double think.
Can the Democrats get guys to vote for Hillary by explaining that she was the real brains behind Bill Clinton’s two terms in office?
If Karl Rove is suggesting that Hilary is non compos mentis, then the tone of the intellectual level for the next Presidential election has been set and it is up to the Democrats to see if they can use (Rush?) limbo dance moves to duck under it.
Speaking of the possibility that Cliven Bundy will run for Congress in his home state, is it true (as Jim Healy would say) that he wants his campaign to be a referendum on this question: “If Republicans, who hate President Obama, say they don’t like Obama is that a prima facie case for charging them with a hate crime?”
While pundits, journalists, and historians are doing the keystrokes for a massive amount of nostalgic pieces about events and pop culture footnotes from fifty, seventy five and one hundred years ago, who will be the first scribe to wonder if President Obama, who is prohibited from running for a third tem as the resident in the White House, will run for any other office after moving out of the place on Pennsylvania Avenue?
Once, previously, a former President, John Quincy Adams, returned to Washington as a congressional representative. President Obama is a relatively young man and appears to be in good health, so he might find the prospect of being a freshman congressional representative who gets oodles of facetime on the evening news broadcasts has a certain allure for a Democrat who could be a thorn in the side of the Republicans if he joins the cast of “usual suspects” who perpetually pepper the nightly news with comments representing the species often called “the loyal opposition.”
Meanwhile, in the late spring of 2014, commencement speakers are closely inspecting each new edition of the New York Times for tell-tale clues for trend-spotting items to be included in their attempts to sound optimistic as they send this year’s graduating classes out into a bright and shiny world full of home foreclosures, student debt, and a glutted job market.
Is the question “do you want an order of fries to go along with your order?” the official motto for the class of 2014?
How does the world look in the spring of 2014? We’ve set the tone for this year by telling a Boston Red Sox’s fan that our prediction is that Derek Jeter’s official last at bat in his last season will be a walk-off grand slam that wins the seventh game of the World Series. It’s just a premonition and we aren’t going to back it with a million to one bet. . . but we will call upon a trustworthy friend to make a certain wager regarding the results of the 2016 Presidential Election in the USA.
It seems that liberal talk show host Randy Rhodes is about to retire and if that happens will there be any Liberal pundits left in broadcast media? Don’t Conservative pundits need a target? How will Uncle Rushbo get along if he can’t go on a rant about Pro-liberal propaganda parading as news?
The Democrats are bound to be borderline apoplectic as they are haunted by the specter of a revived Bush Dynasty becomes a very real possible outcome and the Republicans, who have been seething with animosity every day that President Obama sits in the Oval Office, will whip themselves into a state of misogynistic frenzy while contemplating the potential for a woman reviving a Clinton Dynasty.
Each party will browbeat the public with worst case scenarios meant to goad every citizen of voting age into waiting in line for days (if necessary) to cast the most important ballot they will every have to submit via electronic voting machines that have no method of verifying the results.
Is it siege time in the Liberal world? Should we drink a toast and hurl our glass into the fireplace? “I can’t send my pundits out there! Their Sopwith Camels are being held together with bailing wire and chewing gum.”
If Liberal flavored punditry (propaganda?) is becoming extinct, perhaps the World’s Laziest Journalist needs to switch to presenting conservative talking points heavily laced with irony. That way we could offend almost all the liberal and conservative readers simultaneously.
If Americans don’t want liberal punditry in the pop culture, might that serve to goad an obstreperous pundit of Irish heritage to greater efforts or would it be better to (ideologically speaking) be time to start to establish the foundation for a digital underground version of the Resistance era printed newspaper Combat.
[Note from the Photo Editor: Perception is everything. Irony from a liberal is easy to misinterpret. Is a horseman approaching in the night a knight in armor or is it Ichabod Carne’s nemesis?]
George Carlin wrote: “Sign your petitions, walk your picket lines, bring your lawsuits, cast your votes and write those stupid letters to whomever you please; you won’t change a thing.”
Now the disk jockey will play the Doors’ “The End,” Johnny Cash’s version of “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” and the Byrds’ “Mr. Spaceman.” We have to start celebrating Endangered Species Day today. Have a “Curse you, Red Barron!” type week.
American Geniuses
“Magician, the Astonishing Life & Work of Orson Welles” is a new documentary film that tells the story of the fellow who made radio history and classic films, and was very much underappreciated while doing those things. Welles was a very innovative movie maker and is credited with inspiring the creation of the wide angle lens for “Citizen Kane.”
By pure coincidence, the additional material on a DVD of Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” had alerted us to the fact that Howard Hughes had many things in common with Orson Welles. Hughes was born fabulously wealthy and he never developed a reverence for money and the need to budget wisely. Welles never seemed to have had a conservative approach to fiscal matters. He claimed that on his first night in Dublin Ireland, he spent all his travel money on a lavish meal. Embellishing a story for dramatic effect seems to be a likely modus operandi for a fellow who was noted for a great sense of theatricality.
Hughes was (perhaps) the only Hollywood film director to be honored with a tickertape parade down Broadway in New York City. He received that honor for setting a record for an around the world flight.
Welles was given a lifetime achievement Oscar.
Both men were notorious for their love lives.
Hughes was an aviation pioneer and a celebrated film maker but he also was responsible for some very practical achievements such as introducing retractable landing gear on airplanes. It was an innovation which dramatically increased their speed. His companies made technical innovations which had a beneficial effect on weapons and thus he improved the quality of America’s ability to wage war. His contributions to technology and aviation, which made modern drone strikes possible, was not fully communicated to the American public which dwelled on his flamboyant public image and his impact on that facet of society that thrives on gossip column items.
Welles burst on the New York theater scene already a legend. He had barely passed voting age when he feuded with Hemingway over the narration of a documentary film about the Spanish Civil War.
Part of the Welles legend is that his radio broadcast based on H. G. Wells’ (no relation/different spelling) novel about an invasion from Mars caused mass panic and traffic gridlock. Newspaper articles stating that fact are plentiful but skeptics who wonder if that was just an example of Hollywood ballyhoo are hard pressed to find some citizen who can provide eyewitness descriptions of the alleged example of mass hysteria. Skeptical reporters are advised to always avoid fact checking the legend.
Back then, people were encouraged to get diverse points of view. People who tuned into the Welles broadcast and switched stations to get a different set of facts quickly learned that the other radio networks were presenting the usual Sunday evening smorgasbord of comedy.
A column about American geniuses must note that this week, in San Francisco, it was reported by KCBS news radio that St. Mary’s Cathedral would have to pay to remove the sprinkler system it had installed to soak the homeless sleeping in their doorways, because they had made the “improvement” without getting a building permit. Wouldn’t it have been quicker and more efficient if the bishop had just gone out and urinated on them?
To cynics, it seems that America’s “War on Poverty” has become a war on the poor.
When we asked the Berkeley homeless activist Ninja Kitty if a (formerly) homeless person had ever been elected to Congress, didn’t he respond by saying: “There’s a first time for everything!”?
It used to be that exit polls were credited with pin-point accuracy, but lately they don’t seem to be very reliable at all. Time after time results contradict the exit polls. With that in mind, we predict that Karl Rove’s greatest behind the scenes achievement in American Politics is yet to be achieved. Wouldn’t the reestablishment of the Bush Dynasty be Rove’s greatest triumph?
“Magician” is a Cliff’s Notes style documentary film that will inform the people who are not aware of Welles’ story about the life of a genius and it will also give established Welles fans a new chance to hear his voice and see film sequences which give tantalizing hints about his magnetism and charm.
Clifford Irving wrote a book about a fellow who was very successful painting and selling counterfeit works of art. Irving also wrote a bogus Howard Hughes autobiography.
One of Welles’ many film projects was “F is for Fake,” which included a segment about Clifford Irving.
Now the disk jockey will play Orson Welles’ rendition (it’s on Youtube) of “I know what it is to be young (You don’t know what it is to be old),” Rita Hayworth’s “Put the Blame on Mame, Boys” (conspiracy theory folks assert it was dubbed) and the theme music from “The Third Man.” We have to go fact check the rumor that the Pacific Film Archive will open its new Berkeley home with a tribute to the films of Orson Wells. Have a “Rosebud” type week.