BartBlog

January 31, 2014

Super Bowl, Olympics, and the Imperial Presidency (2.0)

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , — Bob Patterson @ 2:29 pm

The entertainment industry’s awards season has shifted into high gear, football fans are eagerly awaiting the Superbowl this weekend, and the TV news anchors obsessed on the traffic problems caused by ice in Georgia this week.  Automobile enthusiasts learned that a museum for the “inventor” of the Ford Cobra, Carroll Shelby, is in the seeking funding stage of development.  The Winter Olympics will be next week’s big diversionary news gambit from the media.

Thanks to cable news’ need for new sensations syndrome, criticism and analysis of the State of the Union speech was (reluctantly?) given priority for one day.  Did anyone see a Libertarian spokesperson get network airtime to respond to the President’s speech?

The elation of the Democrats in response to the President’s State of the Union speech may have been a bit premature because, upon reflection, what Obama did by resorting to the strategy of using executive orders as a way around a recalcitrant Congress is to grant the Democratic Party’s retroactive approval of George W. Bush’s concept of the Imperial Presidency.

Since there was no particularly gruesome news story to report on Wednesday of this week, the political propaganda factory (AKA the news media) was forced to focus the public’s attention on a macho dynamic Republican who may have subtly been employing the macho hombre attitude of “Let’s see if Hilary can do this!” to confront a reporter with a chance to become a nationally known personality because of a failed attempt for a gottcha moment.

Senator Ted Cruz responded to the President’s State of the Union speech with an opinion piece for Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal that was very critical of the Imperial Presidency of Barack H. Obama.  Democrats who do not appreciate high quality hypocrisy will never understand what makes Republicans tick.

The President’s Year of Action may be the start of the Golden Age of Hypocrisy because this do-si-do maneuver now has the Democrats spouting old talking points that the Republicans used to defend the tactic when it was used by George W. Bush and the Republicans are recycling old Democratic criticism against Dubya to make citizens think ill of Obama.

This couldn’t have worked out better for the old Dubya cadre if they had meticulously planned it while they were occupying the White House.  Some conspiracy theory minded cynics make the bold assertion that the Bush junta used some very devious methods to engineer the Obama win in 2008 and then left the fellow in the White House no other option to salvage his legacy but to carry on Bush’s Forever War just as the Texas petroleum prodigy posse intended.

A large number of folks who will tune in to the Superbowl are mostly interested in seeing the commercials which makes us wonder: since the football fans get meticulous scrutiny of the play they just saw, why doesn’t a cable channel provide in-depth analysis of the Superbowl ads right after they air?  Heck if the casual viewer cares more about the sales pitches, why doesn’t some obscure cable channel have experts explain the hidden persuaders angle to the day’s biggest attraction and ignore the game completely?

Since Australia wants to promote tourism, why don’t they (with a little help from their friends at Qantas?) pay for a live commercial during the Superbowl featuring an attractive lass in a bikini reporting live from Bondi Beach or Cottesloe inviting the Americans struggling through the coldest winter of the Global Warming era to “come on down” and work on their tan?

Speaking of “Think Big!,” a friend in Kansas is going to get a passport and immediately head for Mexico.  Me thinks we should send her a “Best of Edith Piaf” album for her birthday.  Did Piaf do a cover of “April in Paris”?  What is Paris’ official theme song?

Speaking of Paris and Poughkeepsie (Didn’t famed model/photographer/war correspondent Lee Miller call both bergs “home”?) a gal pal in that area of New York wanted to lure the World’s Laziest Journalist into a screenwriting project.  Since we have seen two of our ideas appear on the TV screen and got nada for our efforts, we are inclined to send her a copy of Syd Field’s bible for rookie screenwriters and wish her the best of luck.  If we had a nickel for every time in L. A. that we heard “we’ll write it together and you will get half of the money!;” we’d have enough to buy a latte at a trendy coffee emporium.

How many folks would tune in if CBS reran the Ed Sullivan show featuring the first live American performance by the Beatles?  Replay the whole damn thing.  Commercials and all.  (“I want my Maypo!”)

The prospects for progressive pundits for the next three years are very grim.  In cold weather when a car won’t start a driver will often persist in trying and wear the batter down and thus insure that a call to Triple A for road assistance will be necessary.

The progressive pundits will spend the next three years trying to reassure the male voters that a woman Commander-in-chief for Bush’s continuing Forever War won’t be so bad.

Won’t Ann Coulter have such fun asserting that she was just joking when she was goading liberal men to boldly assert that:  “The old broad is the lesser of two evils.”?

Is it true that Karl Rove is saying:  “If they give the nomination to Hilary, we should pick Barbara Bush.”?

According to the hottest radio show on the West Coast, this week, in Sacramento, for the first time, a woman is the courtside announcer for an NBA team.

If the World’s Laziest Journalist were to be the only pundit to mention that Obama is using the “turnabout is fair play” philosophy and adopting the Bush Imperial Presidency methodology would all the paid commentators ignore the scoop or would they be ordered to not give the idea any chance of “going viral” via any publicity?

[Bike and pedestrian accidents are trending higher in San Francisco and the photo editor thought that a recent spot news photo could be used to illustrate a column that strongly hints that the President is throwing the Democratic Party under the bus.]

Annie Jacobsen, in her book “Area 51,” wrote (page 62):  “When the press disseminates false information that helps keep classified information a secret, the CIA sits back and smiles.”

Now the disk jockey will play Pete Seeger’s “Where have all the flowers gone?,”  “Die Antwoord’s “I Fink U Freaky,” and a Waylon Jennings song, which we recently just heard for the first time, “Must you throw dirt in my face?”  We have to go buy the new copy of Ukulele magazine.  Have a “Just kidding, dude!” type week.

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