Archive Listing
January 8, 2007 - January 1, 2007
Friday, March 24, 2006
The Democrat Hall
of Fame
Madeleine the Great
THE POTATOE. Every
year about this time, the
buzz starts and long forgotten Democrats come out of the woodwork to
make odd speeches and publish weird books about a world that never
existed. Average citizens are generally hurled into a state of alarm by
such shenanigans, but that's because they don't know that it's just
another election season at the Democrat Hall of Fame in Hyde Park, New
York. MSM reporters convene on the first of April to vote on eligible
nominees, who must have been out of office for at least five years
before they can be considered for election to the Hall. As with
baseball's hall of fame, it's usually the case that only two or three
candidates are voted in each year, and this year presents a distinct
challenge because it's the first year of eligibility for alumni of the
Clinton administration. Bill, of course, is a dead cert for election in
his first year of eligibility, but after that it gets complicated. Al
Gore is eligible but is not on the ballot because he hasn't yet decided
whether or not to make a giant fool of himself by running for the
presidency a second time. That leaves a wide open window of opportunity
for a handful of other candidates, who are doing everything possible to
curry favor with the voters. Here's how the field is being handicapped
by those in the know.
Mike McCurry. He was the press secretary throughout the Clinton administration's fight against conviction during the impeachment trial in the Senate. Most say he's a lock to be voted in before his five years of eligibility run out, but not this year. He has been notably absent from party Bush-bashing forums, and that doesn't sit well with the party's news networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and CNN) and publications (NYT, WaPo, Time, Newsweek, etc). Although he bought a round of drinks last week at the monthly meeting of the Liberal Conspiracy Press Association, he did not receive an invitation to go fishing for stripers on Walter Cronkite's yacht. Not a good sign. Look for him to be snubbed in 2006.
Warren Christopher. Much beloved for his testosterone-free term as Secretary of State, Christopher was once considered likely to be voted into the Hall, but this is his final year of eligibility, and he has so far failed to deliver the major Bush-bashing speech or book that voters expect. It's reported that he has conducted a series of "in-depth negotiations" with NYT and WaPo editors to "discuss his qualifications" for the Hall, but his polite mention of the "possibility of forwarding the matter to the U.N.'s Appeasement Promulgation Council" is not being taken seriously by voters. Like sand through the hourglass, Christopher's chances appear to be running out.
William Cohen. A distinctly iffy candidate, Clinton Secretary of Defense Cohen is pinning his hopes for election on Democrat nostalgia for the days when terrorist attacks on the nation were met with dire threats and saber-rattling inaction. In recent months, Cohen has been conducting a quiet PR campaign with voters, consisting mostly of mailings, in which he reminds them via photos and newspaper clippings that he did nothing at all in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. Insiders say there's enormous sympathy for Cohen, as well as admiration and genuine affection, but his chances for induction are "fatally compromised by the fact that he was once a Republican." Oh well.
Madeleine Albright. Long considered a dark horse for the Hall because of her dim intellect and slutty reputation (Caution: NSFW), Albright has been on the comeback trail for several years now. WaPo and NYT editors in particular are impressed by her willingness to bash Bush in public for conducting a foreign policy that defends the United States more than it does every tinpot dictator who has a few bucks to feed into the president's reelection campaign. While they've been persistently reluctant to endorse an aged bimbo whose IQ is noticeably in the special education category, her chances got a huge boost with the op-ed one of her secretaries wrote today for the L.A. Times. An excerpt:
Yup. He has. The problem is called Islam. It's kind of a shame nobody noticed this problem during the eight years of the Clinton administration, but then again, that's an omission that's likely to make Madeleine Albright this year's slam dunk favorite to join Bill Clinton at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Hyde Park.
Congratulations, Maddie.
Mike McCurry. He was the press secretary throughout the Clinton administration's fight against conviction during the impeachment trial in the Senate. Most say he's a lock to be voted in before his five years of eligibility run out, but not this year. He has been notably absent from party Bush-bashing forums, and that doesn't sit well with the party's news networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and CNN) and publications (NYT, WaPo, Time, Newsweek, etc). Although he bought a round of drinks last week at the monthly meeting of the Liberal Conspiracy Press Association, he did not receive an invitation to go fishing for stripers on Walter Cronkite's yacht. Not a good sign. Look for him to be snubbed in 2006.
Warren Christopher. Much beloved for his testosterone-free term as Secretary of State, Christopher was once considered likely to be voted into the Hall, but this is his final year of eligibility, and he has so far failed to deliver the major Bush-bashing speech or book that voters expect. It's reported that he has conducted a series of "in-depth negotiations" with NYT and WaPo editors to "discuss his qualifications" for the Hall, but his polite mention of the "possibility of forwarding the matter to the U.N.'s Appeasement Promulgation Council" is not being taken seriously by voters. Like sand through the hourglass, Christopher's chances appear to be running out.
William Cohen. A distinctly iffy candidate, Clinton Secretary of Defense Cohen is pinning his hopes for election on Democrat nostalgia for the days when terrorist attacks on the nation were met with dire threats and saber-rattling inaction. In recent months, Cohen has been conducting a quiet PR campaign with voters, consisting mostly of mailings, in which he reminds them via photos and newspaper clippings that he did nothing at all in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. Insiders say there's enormous sympathy for Cohen, as well as admiration and genuine affection, but his chances for induction are "fatally compromised by the fact that he was once a Republican." Oh well.
Madeleine Albright. Long considered a dark horse for the Hall because of her dim intellect and slutty reputation (Caution: NSFW), Albright has been on the comeback trail for several years now. WaPo and NYT editors in particular are impressed by her willingness to bash Bush in public for conducting a foreign policy that defends the United States more than it does every tinpot dictator who has a few bucks to feed into the president's reelection campaign. While they've been persistently reluctant to endorse an aged bimbo whose IQ is noticeably in the special education category, her chances got a huge boost with the op-ed one of her secretaries wrote today for the L.A. Times. An excerpt:
For years, the president has acted as
if Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein's followers and Iran's mullahs were parts
of the same problem.
Yup. He has. The problem is called Islam. It's kind of a shame nobody noticed this problem during the eight years of the Clinton administration, but then again, that's an omission that's likely to make Madeleine Albright this year's slam dunk favorite to join Bill Clinton at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Hyde Park.
Congratulations, Maddie.
posted at
3:07 pm
by
The Headhouse Gang
Thursday, March 23, 2006
House of Lords,
Part Deux
A "highly credible public figure"
THE SEQUEL. Back in January, we suggested that the liberal universe is organized around an older cultural model than the Constitution of the United States, namely, the French concept of four estates: the nobility, the clergy, the peasants, and the press. The current version, we argued, regards the Democratic leadership as the nobility, secularist university faculties as the clergy, conservatives and dependent minorities as the peasantry, and the press, of course, is still the press. The specific context for our discussion was the Alito nomination to the Supreme Court, and we proposed that the Dems would like the judiciary to augment and supercede the Congress as a kind of House of Lords. (You can read the whole essay here, if you like, but do it later.)
Our consideration of the liberal nobility focused on the U.S. Senate, but there's another arena where one can see the anachronistic revival of a born aristocracy in action: Hollywood. Has anyone else noticed how many of the current stable of stars are descendants of other celebrities and show business moguls? In the old days, this was rarely the case, and the few exceptions proved the rule: Lon Chaney, Jr., followed directly in the footsteps of Lon Chaney, Sr.; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., emulated the career of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and, notably, the offspring of the illustrious Barrymore siblings -- John, Lionel, and Ethel -- fared poorly in their own attempts to light up movie marquees. And we suppose we should mention Frank Sinatra, Jr, Patrick Wayne, and Chris Mitchum. There. It's done.
But in the world-changing sixties, the worm turned. As with so many contemporary show business trends in the U.S., this one began with Jane Fonda, who parlayed her father's superstardom into a career, first as a semi-soft-porn bimbo in Barbarella and other forgettable films, then as a celebrity political activist and international movie star. After her, the deluge: Michael Douglas, son of Kirk Douglas; Alan Alda, son of Robert Alda; Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis; Katherine Ross, niece of Katherine Hepburn; Anjelica Huston, daughter of actor and director John Huston; Rob Reiner, son of actor and producer Carl Reiner; Carrie Fisher, daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher; Margaux and Mariel Hemingway, granddaughters of Ernest Hemingway; Drew Barrymore, granddaughter of John Barrymore; Angelina Jolie, daughter of Jon Voight; Kiefer Sutherland, son of Donald Sutherland; Sean and Christopher Penn, sons of screenwriter Leo Penn; Isabella Rossellini, daughter of Ingrid Bergman; Gwyneth Paltrow, daughter of actress Blythe Danner; Miguel Ferrer, son of actor Jose Ferrer; Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen, sons of Martin Sheen; Sean Astin, son of Patty Duke and John Astin; George Clooney, nephew of singer and actress Rosemary Clooney; Nicholas Cage, nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola; Sigourney Weaver, daughter of producer Sylvester Weaver; Robert Downey, Jr., son of director Robert Downey, Sr.; Bridget Fonda, daughter of Peter Fonda and niece of Jane Fonda; Kate Hudson, daughter of Goldie Hawn; Freddie Prinze, Jr., son of comedian Freddie Prinze; Roseanna, Patricia, and David Arquette, grandchildren of comedian Cliff Arquette; Liv Tyler, daughter of rock star Steve Tyler; and probably others we'll remember later.
Of course, there are still plenty of Hollywood stars who come from nothing and nowhere, but surely there has been enough second and third generation stardom by now to make one wonder how much of show biz success is a function of real talent and how much is a function of connections and serendipity. Interestingly, there's very little of this multi-generation stardom to be found in the world's other great (and arguably greater) acting talent pool, the United Kingdom. The Redgrave and Mills girls are all pretty long in the tooth now, and Geraldine Chaplin hasn't made much of a splash since 1965's Dr. Zhivago. But isn't it the U.K. which is still clinging officially to the tradition of aristocracy by birth? What does it mean that Hollywood is beginning to resemble a community where titles are inherited things while we look in vain across the pond for a corresponding phenomenon in the land of kings, dukes, and earls?
Two attributes of the above list of stars are striking. First, despite their roots in the entertainment industry, an inordinate number of them have experienced deep personal and professional turmoil over the years. Various of them have been arrested, some repeatedly, for legal problems ranging from drug and alcohol abuse to assault. And it may seem priggish to point out that of the female aristocrats on the list, all but one have done nude scenes and most have simulated the sex act on screen -- priggish but nonetheless true (definitely NSFW). Yes, the Hollywood life is a fast life featuring plenty of temptations, and artists are notoriously flamboyant, but the personal lives of these privileged heirs to fame and fortune tend to be every bit as messy as those who enter the world of celebrity with no early preparation for the shock of stardom. Even the "artist" excuse becomes suspect in these circumstances. How many great writers and painters do you know of who are the sons or daughters of great writers or painters? No wonder actors refer so ostentatiously to their profession as a craft rather than an art. And even if you make every allowance for the unique stresses of celebrity, the irreducible fact that remains is this: these are not people who have grown up like most of us or who have lived lives anything like ours. They are a breed apart, a separate class in the world's most egalitarian democracy.
That's why the second striking attribute of this list is so striking: the percentage of second and third generation Hollywood aristocrats who are loudly and self-righteously hostile to Republicans on topics ranging from capitalism to social values to foreign policy. For some reason, they believe they are expert advocates for the needs and rights of ordinary people. Alan Alda is a sappy male feminist and bleeding heart. Rob Reiner hasn't found a leftwing cause he can't slobberingly endorse in every possible venue. Sean Penn has the nerve to visit Saddam's Iraq as if he somehow speaks for any sliver of ordinary American experience. Gwyneth Paltrow goes out of her way to disdain Americans and the American way of life in foreign interviews, as if she knew anything about either. George Clooney is a boorish leftwing ass who acts more like a candidate for office than a so-so actor with more ambition and connections than talent. Angelina Jolie is auditioning simultaneously for the roles of Mother Theresa and secretary-general of the U.N. Michael Douglas has delusions of Democrat presidency almost as toxic as Martin Sheen's. And if you google their names, you'll find others on this list, including even the winsome Kate Hudson, who are eager participants and donors at Democrat fundraising (and Bush-bashing) galas.
Which brings us to Charlie Sheen, erstwhile addict of hookers and cocaine, who has just stepped into the spotlight to announce his conviction that the 9/11 attack was not planned by bin Laden or Islamist terrorists, but evil rightwingers in the camp of Bush and Cheney. The news article reporting this actually begins with this ridiculous statement:
Actor Charlie Sheen has joined a
growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the
official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation
of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it.
Highly credible public figure? Charlie Sheen? An assertion so idiotic that it's proof-positive of our First Estate theory. But Bad Boy Charlie's choice of causes is a helpful insight into the true nature of lefty celebrity politics. Where have they gotten the majority of their education about world affairs, after all? From the movie scripts they've memorized and play-acted in. His first big role was in Platoon, where he learned about the Vietnam War and American foreign policy from the paranoid megalomaniac Oliver Stone (who is also memorable for having resurrected an absolutely discredited conspiracy theory about the JFK assassination). Charlie has starred in various other movies featuring wild conspiracy plots, including alien invasion and White House assassination intrigues. He has learned about the nearly flawless efficiency of his country's special forces units by starring in Navy SEALs. Why wouldn't it be credible to him that an intricate and profoundly evil conspiracy could be planned at the top of the national power structure and executed through its myriad phases and details in absolute secrecy? It happens in the movies all the time, and it's always the case -- on-screen, anyway -- that the malignant plotters would succeed easily if it weren't for the handsome hero who single-handedly undoes their dirty work.
But why would anyone -- especially the intellectuals of the news media -- expect us to regard an advocate like Charlie Sheen as credible? Because the press propagandists also belong to one of the anointed estates -- the Fourth -- and are so removed from the lives of the peasantry that they believe we are gullible enough to genuflect before any of the nation's true aristocrats, including a spoiled high-school dropout who hitched a glory ride on the back of his Dad's celebrity. We're supposed to forget that this particular noble family is headed by a patriarch who flunked his own college entrance exams and has yet come to believe somehow that he's the Nobel laureate PhD. President he plays on a TV show.
The sad fact is that the years-old 9/11 conspiracy theories are being deliberately revived right now as part of the general effort to administer a coup de grace to the Bush presidency. Celebrity endorsement is a necessary vehicle for this scheme because time has not been friendly to the conspiracy theorists. Only a determined idiot could sign on to all that's left of their witches' brew of contextless claims. How, for example, do you think Charlie acquired his expertise in the gospel of WTC treachery? By watching a movie, of course, in this case one of the numerous flash documentaries that appear and reappear in viral persistence on the Internet. Here's one called Loose Change, which is archetypally ominous in tone, inconsistent with multifariously documented facts, and blatantly self-contradictory in its own terms. And if you can't discern these defects by watching, here's what even a dedicated 9/11 conspiracy theorist has to say about the movie.
While it is still possible to find thousands -- or even hundreds of thousands -- of web pages devoted to crackpot fictions about 9/11, the more educated of the conspiracists have been waging a long war of attrition against the transparent nonsense of films like Loose Change for a couple years now. Their own belief in conspiracy has been reduced to one point of contention -- the way the twin towers and Building 7 fell. Their understanding of physics is insufficient to imagine how the towers could collapse at the speed of freefall, because they keep seeing the process as an incremental series of floor-to-floor collapses (akin to the fallacy of Zeno's Arrow), which, by their accounting, would require ten seconds or more to complete.
Seriously, that's all that's left of the dozens of errata which have been compiled into the bizarre story that lets bin Laden and al Qaida off the hook. And anyone who has the wit to perceive that the collapse of the towers was not an incremental affair, but a wave of collapse that fed instantaneously from the level of the fire down to the foundations without resistance will see that, in truth, there's really nothing left of this whole tired tantrum of hateful paranoia.
And shouldn't it be easier to understand a few elementary aspects of materials and engineering than to concoct an explanation for why hijacked airliners were roped into the conspiracy for window-dressing when the real damage was always going to be done by planted explosives? Terrorists can learn to implode a building as easily, if not more so, than they can learn to steer airliners into skyscrapers. But it's not nearly as good cinematically, even if it reduces the complexity (and risk) of the plotting by about 99 percent.
Maybe that's why it's become time to call on Hollywood's second-generation morons to concoct the explanation for them, some combination of evil corporate executives and fascist warlords who went into business for themselves after James Bond finally dismantled S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Sound good? Maybe we could get John Williams to write the score.
And if Charlie Sheen isn't enough of an authority to convince all us peasants, perhaps they'll dig up some second generation Hollywood duchess to persuade us by holding a topless press conference catered by George Soros and CAIR. That ought to do the trick. We just love being lectured to by naked noblewomen. As long as we can see the press conference on high-def TV.
Thank God for Democrats. They're so damned silly it takes your breath away.
posted at
9:25 pm
by
InstaPunk
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Unmanliness is the
Answer?
SACRED TRUTHS. A woman named Ruth Marcus has figured out how to run the world. She's written a critique of a Harvard professor's book which suggests that manliness is a key to leadership. Her conclusion?
Mansfield writes that he wants to
"convince skeptical readers -- above all, educated women" -- that
"irrational manliness deserves to be endorsed by reason." Sorry,
professor: You lose. What this country could use is a little less
manliness -- and a little more of what you would describe as womanly
qualities: restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even
a touch of self-doubt.
We haven't read Mansfield's book yet, and it's possible we won't ever. Our perception is that a Harvard professor of Government doesn't know about the real qualities of manliness any more than a Washington Post feminist does. We'll confine ourselves to commenting on her prescription for a wise administration of the affairs of the United States and the world.
Except for this significant quibble about the Mansfield quote Marcus cites: "irrational manliness deserves to be endorsed by reason." If this is an accurate quote, it's devoid of context and therefore meaningless. Still, it's worth pointing out that the subject of the sentence is absurd, an oxymoron that must be exposed. Manliness is not irrational. It has a moral component at its core -- that a man should behave in ways that embody courage, resolve, personal responsibility, dignity, and fairness -- which explicitly subordinates mere maleness to the guidance of reason. As an ideal of civilization, manliness governs emotion. It does not need to be endorsed by reason because it is already infused with reason.
Ruth Marcus
Now we're ready to tackle Ms. Marcus,
who like most of her generation confuses manliness with the superficial
macho that is in many ways its opposite. Macho starts fights to show
off; manliness confines aggression to the situations that reasonably
require it. Macho tailors its behavior to the audience; manliness
dictates the same behavior in all company and in solitude. Macho is
about ego; manliness is about character.
This error of understanding clearly has affected Ms. Marcus's list of supposed womanly qualities. The first two, restraint and introspection, are historically the province of men more than women. Restraint is a quality that becomes more important as one ascends the scale of strength and power. The most dangerous have the greatest obligation to turn the other cheek. Conversely, it is those who perceive themselves to be weak who frequently abandon restraint and indulge in explosive and destructive emotion. Introspection is more characteristic of those who make their own decisions in life without always seeking a consensus, and it is more likely to become a habit with those who do not have the option of presenting a painted face to the world.
With respect to consensus, I grant that women seek it more than men do. Whether this represents a better approach to decision-making is open to serious question. It is distinctly incompatible with manliness, because it is the first refuge of those who desire not to be held personally accountable for the consequences of their actions. It is also generally fatal to long-term resolve, because it so often results in half-baked plans that have only been half thought through, and it's far easier to give up by consensus than to soldier through to the end of a difficult course of action.
Self-doubt is part of the human condition and is never a virtue simply because it exists. The virtue accrues to those who can withstand self-doubt to complete an important task, even if it means finding reserves of strength and faith that may not have been known to be available.
What's important about Ms. Marcus's list of virtues is the picture it paints of how she believes serious situations should be addressed -- with lots of talking, a timid approach to concrete action, a fuzzy chain of responsibility that lets everyone off the hook for ill consequences beforehand, and enough dithering and uncertainty in execution to ensure that every action plan will ultimately be terminated before it achieves its half-assed goals. Throughout, of course, there must be plenty of agonizing and considerable concern for the feelings of everyone involved.
This may be an ideal system for publishing a daily wad of yellow journalism, but it isn't remotely close to what is needed when thousands or millions of avowed enemies are actively trying to kill your people, wreck your cities, and impose a seventh century barbarian regime on the entire world while most of the world cowers in impotent consensus.
Ms. Marcus and her feminist colleagues may have succeeded in trans-gendering the west into a woman's world, as most contemporary social evidence seems to confirm, but how much of their woman's world will still be standing when the consensus decides it's safer to accept sharia than to shed any more blood fighting it? Not much.
But, then, I'm not a woman, so what do I know?
This error of understanding clearly has affected Ms. Marcus's list of supposed womanly qualities. The first two, restraint and introspection, are historically the province of men more than women. Restraint is a quality that becomes more important as one ascends the scale of strength and power. The most dangerous have the greatest obligation to turn the other cheek. Conversely, it is those who perceive themselves to be weak who frequently abandon restraint and indulge in explosive and destructive emotion. Introspection is more characteristic of those who make their own decisions in life without always seeking a consensus, and it is more likely to become a habit with those who do not have the option of presenting a painted face to the world.
With respect to consensus, I grant that women seek it more than men do. Whether this represents a better approach to decision-making is open to serious question. It is distinctly incompatible with manliness, because it is the first refuge of those who desire not to be held personally accountable for the consequences of their actions. It is also generally fatal to long-term resolve, because it so often results in half-baked plans that have only been half thought through, and it's far easier to give up by consensus than to soldier through to the end of a difficult course of action.
Self-doubt is part of the human condition and is never a virtue simply because it exists. The virtue accrues to those who can withstand self-doubt to complete an important task, even if it means finding reserves of strength and faith that may not have been known to be available.
What's important about Ms. Marcus's list of virtues is the picture it paints of how she believes serious situations should be addressed -- with lots of talking, a timid approach to concrete action, a fuzzy chain of responsibility that lets everyone off the hook for ill consequences beforehand, and enough dithering and uncertainty in execution to ensure that every action plan will ultimately be terminated before it achieves its half-assed goals. Throughout, of course, there must be plenty of agonizing and considerable concern for the feelings of everyone involved.
This may be an ideal system for publishing a daily wad of yellow journalism, but it isn't remotely close to what is needed when thousands or millions of avowed enemies are actively trying to kill your people, wreck your cities, and impose a seventh century barbarian regime on the entire world while most of the world cowers in impotent consensus.
Ms. Marcus and her feminist colleagues may have succeeded in trans-gendering the west into a woman's world, as most contemporary social evidence seems to confirm, but how much of their woman's world will still be standing when the consensus decides it's safer to accept sharia than to shed any more blood fighting it? Not much.
But, then, I'm not a woman, so what do I know?
