I admit, I haven't watched much Saturday Night Live since the days of Wayne's World and the Church Lady. But the flap over the actor playing Obama illustrates one thing for me: The best comedy always contains an element of the truth.
As the article points out, this is not the first time they have gotten a white actor to play a black public figure. So why is there a flap now? Isn't Obama actually only half black, with the other half being white? Wasn't Fred Armisen cast mostly because of his mastery of Obama's mannerisms?
I think this tempest in a teapot is more about a rather nasty truth that Armisen's portrayal brings out:
If Barak Hussein Obama were a fully white guy named Barry Herbert Owens, given the same record otherwise-----would the Democrats have lifted him to this height? Or isn't it far more likely he would have gotten the same lecture one should give any first-term Senator thinking of a White House run who has never faced a serious opposing party's challenger not pre-weakened by scandal?
I think what troubles the Obama supporters is the answer to that question. It points also to why Rush Limbaugh often refers to Obama as "Barry." Would Barak voters vote for "Barry", or would they get a bit more fearful about Barry's liberal voting record (what there is of it), the fact it took a scandal to get him in the Senate in the first place (would a lack of scandal in the next election doom his chances?), and his never having been in the hot seat of being targeted by a GOP that cared to fight for the seat he wanted?
Seeing Obama portrayed without his blackness may remind voters of Barry, when the Obama campaign is counting on them voting for Barak.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
If the Democrats fracture....
Instead of scaring y'all, how about a little hope?
What if McCain wins, or more importantly, what if the Democrats lose?
Consider everything the Left has bet on this election, consider the fractures that are already appearing in their coalition, and think about what happens if they lose. Even if it means McCain wins.
When Fidel dies, or rather, when the Cuban government can't hide his death anymore---this is likely to either happen this year or the next. If at all possible, the Cuban government would like to hold off this reckoning until after the inauguration of a Democrat President----so what happens if the Democrat is not inaugurated? What happens if the Administration in 2009 is not loaded with people who need to cover theirs and their donors' butts with regard to Castro? What happens when the DGI files are released, and the Counterintelligence files on Americans who worked on behalf of the Castro regime can be declassified?
What happens in Latin America should DGI files and their corresponding counterintelligence files get declassified with regard to corrupted politicians and terrorist movements that have stymied progress in that area for so long? What happens to illegal immigration then, should the economic situation in Latin America improve?
What happens in Iraq if the same party as the guy who has been hammering on them for six years gets another four years at being the party of the the CINC? Can any solution the jihadis have come up with to tide them over until the election last another four years?
What happens in Iran if Ahmadiniejad doesn't get his invitation to Obama's Middle Eastern conference, and has another four years at the very least to have to match wits with someone determined to stop his nuke program? The same question I also ask about North Korea.
What happens to George Soros, after he has invested so much in buying a party, if that party doesn't win after eight years of very expensive hammering? What happens to the likes of Kos, Amanda Marcotte, and the like if it becomes patently obvious they can't pick their noses, much less a winner? Whither the Clintons?
I don't pretend to know these answers, but I certainly think finding them out is worth holding ones nose in the phone booth if necessary.
What if McCain wins, or more importantly, what if the Democrats lose?
Consider everything the Left has bet on this election, consider the fractures that are already appearing in their coalition, and think about what happens if they lose. Even if it means McCain wins.
When Fidel dies, or rather, when the Cuban government can't hide his death anymore---this is likely to either happen this year or the next. If at all possible, the Cuban government would like to hold off this reckoning until after the inauguration of a Democrat President----so what happens if the Democrat is not inaugurated? What happens if the Administration in 2009 is not loaded with people who need to cover theirs and their donors' butts with regard to Castro? What happens when the DGI files are released, and the Counterintelligence files on Americans who worked on behalf of the Castro regime can be declassified?
What happens in Latin America should DGI files and their corresponding counterintelligence files get declassified with regard to corrupted politicians and terrorist movements that have stymied progress in that area for so long? What happens to illegal immigration then, should the economic situation in Latin America improve?
What happens in Iraq if the same party as the guy who has been hammering on them for six years gets another four years at being the party of the the CINC? Can any solution the jihadis have come up with to tide them over until the election last another four years?
What happens in Iran if Ahmadiniejad doesn't get his invitation to Obama's Middle Eastern conference, and has another four years at the very least to have to match wits with someone determined to stop his nuke program? The same question I also ask about North Korea.
What happens to George Soros, after he has invested so much in buying a party, if that party doesn't win after eight years of very expensive hammering? What happens to the likes of Kos, Amanda Marcotte, and the like if it becomes patently obvious they can't pick their noses, much less a winner? Whither the Clintons?
I don't pretend to know these answers, but I certainly think finding them out is worth holding ones nose in the phone booth if necessary.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...
In all likelihood, Hillary Clinton was originally planning her Presidential run in 2004. Prior to 9/11 it seemed George W Bush was destined to be a one-term President, and the Shadow Party was well in place to keep a steady drumbeat of attacks on Bush's competence, effectiveness, and even his mere existence. Then Hillary, after four years of pounding on Bush through proxies, was to ride in like a good memory of the Clinton years (after the short memories of the public had time to overwrite those inconvenient bad memories of the Clinton years).
However, 9/11 got in the way. And in 2004, the Clintons decided it was far too likely that the American people would be hesitant to "change horses" in the middle of a fight that was only about 2 years old at that point. Also, the strategy of relentless attack through proxies the Clintons were relying on in peacetime had a good chance of blowing up in the Clintons' faces in the middle of a war. So Hillary decided not to run in 2004, figuring she could control Kerry if he actually won, and that if Bush won (which he did), she'd have a better chance at an ultimate victory after another four years of pounding on the GOP some more through proxies. She gave up a possible victory now for a hoped-for victory in 2008.
Let's see how that's turning out:
A lot happened in those four years. Quite a bit happened with regard to the public perception of the Clintons, such as The Path to 9/11 and the Clintons' high-handed attempt to censor it. The Democrat win in 2006 didn't bring with it everything the Democrats promised, leading to a bit more jaded view of Democrat promises. More has come out about the bad part of the Clinton years as time has passed and loyalties have softened.
Hence, instead of ultimate victory, Hillary may be facing either defeat by some empty-suit nobody, or losing the Presidency due to divisions in her party she has played a large part in creating. She gave up a very possible victory in 2004 for an ultimate victory in 2008 that may not happen--which would mean she gave up 2004 for nothing.
I'm not asking anybody to be happy with the GOP's choice, or even its rather limited set of choices for the Presidential run this year. I am simply questioning what seems to be the Sooper Sekrit Plan for Ultimate TRUE CONSERVATIVE Victory Forever and Ever:
1. Stay home this year to punish the GOP and (maybe) make them Lose Big
2. Somebody Makes A Mistake Somewhere
3. TRUE CONSERVATISM (tm) after the GOP and the rest of the country comes back to Real Conservatives (tm) hat in hand and begging on their knees in 2012
The biggest thing these folks seem to be relying on are mistakes that would be made either by the McCain campaign or by Hillary/Obama when in office. Unless you are the direct cause of the mistake, don't count on some other guy's mistake causing your ultimate victory. Because if they decide not to screw up, or events intervene, you have simply given up a very possible victory now for absolutely nothing later.
Think about it.
However, 9/11 got in the way. And in 2004, the Clintons decided it was far too likely that the American people would be hesitant to "change horses" in the middle of a fight that was only about 2 years old at that point. Also, the strategy of relentless attack through proxies the Clintons were relying on in peacetime had a good chance of blowing up in the Clintons' faces in the middle of a war. So Hillary decided not to run in 2004, figuring she could control Kerry if he actually won, and that if Bush won (which he did), she'd have a better chance at an ultimate victory after another four years of pounding on the GOP some more through proxies. She gave up a possible victory now for a hoped-for victory in 2008.
Let's see how that's turning out:
A lot happened in those four years. Quite a bit happened with regard to the public perception of the Clintons, such as The Path to 9/11 and the Clintons' high-handed attempt to censor it. The Democrat win in 2006 didn't bring with it everything the Democrats promised, leading to a bit more jaded view of Democrat promises. More has come out about the bad part of the Clinton years as time has passed and loyalties have softened.
Hence, instead of ultimate victory, Hillary may be facing either defeat by some empty-suit nobody, or losing the Presidency due to divisions in her party she has played a large part in creating. She gave up a very possible victory in 2004 for an ultimate victory in 2008 that may not happen--which would mean she gave up 2004 for nothing.
I'm not asking anybody to be happy with the GOP's choice, or even its rather limited set of choices for the Presidential run this year. I am simply questioning what seems to be the Sooper Sekrit Plan for Ultimate TRUE CONSERVATIVE Victory Forever and Ever:
1. Stay home this year to punish the GOP and (maybe) make them Lose Big
2. Somebody Makes A Mistake Somewhere
3. TRUE CONSERVATISM (tm) after the GOP and the rest of the country comes back to Real Conservatives (tm) hat in hand and begging on their knees in 2012
The biggest thing these folks seem to be relying on are mistakes that would be made either by the McCain campaign or by Hillary/Obama when in office. Unless you are the direct cause of the mistake, don't count on some other guy's mistake causing your ultimate victory. Because if they decide not to screw up, or events intervene, you have simply given up a very possible victory now for absolutely nothing later.
Think about it.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A "RINO" has to ask....
I want all you "true conservatives" to tell me something: Where did the idea come from that the 2008 GOP primary was supposed to be the Second Coming of Reagan? Did I miss some Bible verse or something? There are a lot of upset people on the Right right now because we ended up with what they would call a RINO as the GOP nominee. Umm, as opposed to whom?
The flip-flopper (Romney)?
The *GASP* gun-grabbing pro-choice guy who wasn't apologetic about it (Giuliani)?
The former abortion lobbyist (Thompson)?
The guy who alternates between being William Jennings Bryan and John Edwards (Huckabee)?...
Right. Okay. Whatever.
So, where was this Reagan supposed to come from? Was the GOP supposed to be complete morons, pluck some good-looking well-spoken unknown from Bugtussle, and throw him naked and screaming into the clutches of Hillary Clinton and her pet smear machine?
Oh, here we go---they were supposed to draft Newt Gingrich. After all, the public (and Newt) just can't get enough retellings of how he left his cancer-stricken wife at her bedside, can they?
And how about Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo? After all they got so many conservative votes in the primary....oh wait, no they didn't! But how they'd win, oh yessirree! So let's all hold our breath collectively, that is such a sure way of getting what you want, right?
Take some Beano guys, because it's not your mouths making all that noise.
I thought part of the fun of being right was amusement at watching Lefties' twists, turns and perversions of logic. Then I see half of Townhall berate Michael Reagan and try and tell him that he wouldn't know what his own father would have wanted. I think I found that following a link sandwiched between blog postings calling for a brokered GOP convention when one guy is within 200 delegates of securing the nomination just before Ohio and Texas vote.
I thought only idiot lefties paid more attention to a candidate's platitudes than his actual record. Then I saw Romney made out to be The Conservative Candidate (despite only having his Road to Damascus moment on the road to his run for the White House). I thought only lefties threw themselves at some pointless and ill-thought-out plan, and then I watch some kind of plan where you don't vote for someone, they win anyway and they are somehow supposed to still need your vote enough to pander to your every little whim.
1) Refuse to vote for the GOP candidate
2) ???
3) True Conservatism (tm)
I just don't get it. Our troops are out there while the voters who are supposed to support them are busy sounding like the Underpants Gnomes. Start making some sense, folks!
The flip-flopper (Romney)?
The *GASP* gun-grabbing pro-choice guy who wasn't apologetic about it (Giuliani)?
The former abortion lobbyist (Thompson)?
The guy who alternates between being William Jennings Bryan and John Edwards (Huckabee)?...
Right. Okay. Whatever.
So, where was this Reagan supposed to come from? Was the GOP supposed to be complete morons, pluck some good-looking well-spoken unknown from Bugtussle, and throw him naked and screaming into the clutches of Hillary Clinton and her pet smear machine?
Oh, here we go---they were supposed to draft Newt Gingrich. After all, the public (and Newt) just can't get enough retellings of how he left his cancer-stricken wife at her bedside, can they?
And how about Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo? After all they got so many conservative votes in the primary....oh wait, no they didn't! But how they'd win, oh yessirree! So let's all hold our breath collectively, that is such a sure way of getting what you want, right?
Take some Beano guys, because it's not your mouths making all that noise.
I thought part of the fun of being right was amusement at watching Lefties' twists, turns and perversions of logic. Then I see half of Townhall berate Michael Reagan and try and tell him that he wouldn't know what his own father would have wanted. I think I found that following a link sandwiched between blog postings calling for a brokered GOP convention when one guy is within 200 delegates of securing the nomination just before Ohio and Texas vote.
I thought only idiot lefties paid more attention to a candidate's platitudes than his actual record. Then I saw Romney made out to be The Conservative Candidate (despite only having his Road to Damascus moment on the road to his run for the White House). I thought only lefties threw themselves at some pointless and ill-thought-out plan, and then I watch some kind of plan where you don't vote for someone, they win anyway and they are somehow supposed to still need your vote enough to pander to your every little whim.
1) Refuse to vote for the GOP candidate
2) ???
3) True Conservatism (tm)
I just don't get it. Our troops are out there while the voters who are supposed to support them are busy sounding like the Underpants Gnomes. Start making some sense, folks!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Let's Ruin Their Credit.
Have you ever looked at older homes, especially the ones built before home loans became widely available? Note how small they were and how few features they had. Then notice a home built a few years later after essentially buying a home on credit became the norm. Notice a huge difference in included features and size? The same goes for cars, computers, and ...publicity machines. You can buy on credit something much nicer than you can get by paying for it with what you have on hand.
Denizens of the Hollywood closet and other celebrities with something to hide have spent some of the millions they have been paid in order to hire publicists, lawyers, and handlers who have been meticulously trained to hide from the public things about a public person the public person doesn't want the public to know. If they could hide Jodie Foster's gay lover and make people believe Britney Spears was a virgin until about the time she released her second album.....they can hide the excessive monetary demands, alcoholism, and compulsive shopping of any Republican candidate's ex-wife, if her story's good enough and she wants to re-fight her divorce in the media. But these guys aren't cheap.
All the setting up of 527s, all the research, all the following candidates around with a video camera waiting for them to say "macaca," is not something people do out of the goodness of their hearts or belief in "the cause." It is so much more than your average political campaign can afford using their own coffers. Either there has been the largest convergence between otherwise hard-nosed businesspeople to throw the resources of their entire businesses towards some seriously anti-business candidates out of some 1960s nostalgia.... or the Democrats have bought their media machine on credit. How far would a promise of White House access go towards paying the publicists' bills?
This whole network, the whole Shadow Party was brought together under the Clintons in order to usher in a Clinton Restoration. The deals with investors and media were struck with the Clintons, not the Obamas. This is why I believe that barring a complete turnaround in the primaries, Hillary Clinton will end up being the nominee. The various elements of the media machine cannot trust Obama to hold to the same promises in 2009 that the Clintons might have given them in 2005, and the credit of the Democrat Party with its media wing could be at stake if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee.
The Achilles heel here is that all of those publicists, lawyers, researchers, and even investors like George Soros are going to want a return on this investment, i.e. access to the highest levels of government, and scoring the ultimate client at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
So what happens if the GOP unites behind their candidate and wins? Those businesspeople would have spent a whole lot of resources for no return. The Democrat Party would finally become a bad credit risk, and would have to pay cash up front in order to do business with the same publicity and research firms in 2010 or 2012 that in 2008 are working on credit and a promise. This puts the fight between Republicans and Democrats on a much more even level, and allows good conservative candidates to stop hiding on the back bench in fear of a billion-dollar smear machine. So let's hold our noses this year and ruin the Democrats' credit, so they will actually have to pay for their good press and opponents' bad press like any other respectable politicians. Can we agree on that?
Denizens of the Hollywood closet and other celebrities with something to hide have spent some of the millions they have been paid in order to hire publicists, lawyers, and handlers who have been meticulously trained to hide from the public things about a public person the public person doesn't want the public to know. If they could hide Jodie Foster's gay lover and make people believe Britney Spears was a virgin until about the time she released her second album.....they can hide the excessive monetary demands, alcoholism, and compulsive shopping of any Republican candidate's ex-wife, if her story's good enough and she wants to re-fight her divorce in the media. But these guys aren't cheap.
All the setting up of 527s, all the research, all the following candidates around with a video camera waiting for them to say "macaca," is not something people do out of the goodness of their hearts or belief in "the cause." It is so much more than your average political campaign can afford using their own coffers. Either there has been the largest convergence between otherwise hard-nosed businesspeople to throw the resources of their entire businesses towards some seriously anti-business candidates out of some 1960s nostalgia.... or the Democrats have bought their media machine on credit. How far would a promise of White House access go towards paying the publicists' bills?
This whole network, the whole Shadow Party was brought together under the Clintons in order to usher in a Clinton Restoration. The deals with investors and media were struck with the Clintons, not the Obamas. This is why I believe that barring a complete turnaround in the primaries, Hillary Clinton will end up being the nominee. The various elements of the media machine cannot trust Obama to hold to the same promises in 2009 that the Clintons might have given them in 2005, and the credit of the Democrat Party with its media wing could be at stake if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee.
The Achilles heel here is that all of those publicists, lawyers, researchers, and even investors like George Soros are going to want a return on this investment, i.e. access to the highest levels of government, and scoring the ultimate client at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
So what happens if the GOP unites behind their candidate and wins? Those businesspeople would have spent a whole lot of resources for no return. The Democrat Party would finally become a bad credit risk, and would have to pay cash up front in order to do business with the same publicity and research firms in 2010 or 2012 that in 2008 are working on credit and a promise. This puts the fight between Republicans and Democrats on a much more even level, and allows good conservative candidates to stop hiding on the back bench in fear of a billion-dollar smear machine. So let's hold our noses this year and ruin the Democrats' credit, so they will actually have to pay for their good press and opponents' bad press like any other respectable politicians. Can we agree on that?
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