Hillbilly

Just came across this in the NY Times Caucus blog-- sure beats "Billary."

Now Make Yourself Useful

To Msr. John Edwards, who has dropped out of the presidential race to, presumably, go back to selling used cars:

Congratulations! You have succeeded in you original goal, at least, which was to get people to stop confusing you with that psychic speak-to-the-dead guy. You actually had some good ideas-- unfortunately, they just seemed disingenuous coming out from under a $400 haircut. If you really wants to help out the millworkers' sons and the rest of the "Second America" (thank god we won't have to hear that line again), however, you need to go a step further. Endorse Obama. You know you wanna.

The Snub

Here they go again... I must say, I never thought I'd agree with a columnist whose last book was called "Are Men Necessary?", but Maureen Dowd seems to have hit the nail on the head with this one. This is what Hillary actually had the nerve to say:

“Well, I reached my hand out in friendship and unity and my hand is still reaching out,” she said, lapsing back into the dissed-woman mode. “And I look forward to shaking his hand sometime soon.”

(for the full column, check out Seeing Red Over Hillary)

In His Own Words (or Those of His Speechwriters)

After giving Hillary (and Bill) a good ol'-fashioned butt-kicking South Carolina, Obama seems to have refined and pinpointed his message into one that says "Back off, Bubba" and/or "You're either with us or against us." Either way, it's a winning framework:

“The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white. It’s about the past versus the future.”

Stimulus Package

Nothing new to report here, we just like saying the phrase "Stimulus Package."

Goldmember

Yes, it is that time of year again, when Hollywood gets to pat itself on the a✭✭ and spread around statues of little gold men who are in no way anatomically erect. Having recently viewed a few of the nominated films, and finding the reviews that had originally inspired us to be woefully out of touch with the "common man" (we occasionally like to think of ourself as such), we felt we had no choice but to weigh in.

We used the "Netflix" system of 1-5 stars in our ratings.. and perhaps because of this, have felt compelled to use each ranking once.

✭✭✭✭✭ The Lives of Others-- Last year's Foreign-Language Oscar winner got us good. This despite the fact that it has subtitles.

✭✭✭✭ Juno-- We found this little ditty severely grating at the outset, but by the end we had to acknowledge it as part of the plan to break us down to the point where we were willing to accept what we would normally classify as cheesy. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that we related to the Michael Cena character. The music-video montage at the end should go, however.

✭✭✭ No Country For Old Men-- Brilliant cinematography and scenery-- we're sure a lot of film buffs felt compelled to praise it for the technical work alone-- but the story is dark and depressing, the acclaimed Javier Bardem's performance one-dimensional, and the movie itself largely unfulfilling.

✭✭ There Will Be Blood-- An overlong and, at times, excruciating film, designed to tell you in 2 and a half hours what we could have told you in 2 and a half seconds... "Greed, for lack of a better word, is bad." Daniel Day Lewis never lets you forget for a minute that he is acting, which we don't feel is something he should be rewarded for. In fact, we must admit that we would rather have seen Sr. Sly Stallone amidst those oil fires.

Spoiler alert-- In the end, oh yes, there is blood.

✭ Charlie Wilson's War-- How they could screw this up is beyond us. The real story is even better than what the lawyers allowed on screen, and they had Aaron Sorkin writing the script. Wethinks that Sorkin should have partaken more of his dubage beforehand, and that someone, anyone (John Travolta. Keanu Reaves. Cate Blanchette.), would have been better than Tom Hanks in the title role. Is it that hard to pretend you are having fun in the company of strippers, booze, and coke?

Philip Seymour Hoffman is, as usual, brilliant, and is thus far our leading candidate for Best Supporting Actor... but even he wasn't enough to hold Hanks' bloated a** up (we didn't want to waste any stars here).

Letter to the New York Times That Won't Be Published

(For one, we have a hard time with that whole "150 words" thing)

Re: "Primary Choices: Hillary Clinton"

To the Editor:

Your endorsement of Hillary Clinton starts off by alluding to previous years when Democrats had to "work hard to get excited by whichever candidate seems most likely to outlast an uninspiring pack," and yet, by concluding your column with references to "her comeback in New Hampshire and strong showing in Nevada," you appear to be doing
precisely that.

While you rightly disagree with Mrs. Clinton's vote for the resolution for the use of force in Iraq, you do not comment on her signing of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment and its implications for the continuation of a "Bush-lite" foreign policy. We don't know what the future will bring, only that there won't be time to conduct a poll and write a script before making the next decision. The best arguments for Obama are, in [our] opinion, the very statements that have been most criticized by Hillary and her longtime supporters (if not the wait-and-seers like the New York Times): that he would talk to our enemies, and would care for the victims of a terrorist act before bombing some random Arab—or, in this case, Persian— country.

Why Should We Get $600?

We just learned about the new "stimulus" package in the works, where checks are to be cut for $600 for taxpaying individuals, and $1200 for couples. To be honest, our buying habits haven't been significantly affected by this "downturn," and indeed have been heading in the other direction (we had to make up for lost time out of the country, after all). Sure, this may help buffer the fading economy for the short term, but, in the end, isn't this an overt acknowledgement that the Republican approach to cutting taxes is the way to go?

Ain't She a Woman?

In our sojourn for truth this election season, there is no sense tap-dancing around the issue; while there are obviously other factors involved, having the first female president or the first black president (for real) will obviously have a ripple effect beyond any logistical stances, and can't help but play some sort of a role in the selection process for every voter. The only point we'd like to make is that when the media depicts Hillary as representing women, it is white women they are at least subconsciously projecting. Black women, unfortunately, still face a whole other layer of issues, and it is a legitimate question to ask who best represents these.

It Really Is the Economy, Stupid

Yep, all that wanton loaning and borrowing and submortgaging has come back to bite us in the a**. As we speak, the effects are rippling around the globe. A recession is on its way, people, and they're ain't that much any president's going to be able to stop it... though any president-elect'd be better than the current one.

Our present mood, in sum, is a rational lack of exuberance.

Race De-Baiting

For us, the most interesting topics of the Democratic debate tonight concerned race, which, despite whatever the heckler said, pinpoints important issues and important differences. Obama handled the Latino question well, focusing on his constituency and the commonalities that do exist, while Hillary came across as very awkward with her “black and brown” comments, which seemed like she was trying a little too hard to get the lingo right.

Most importantly for Obama, he dished out some criticism of neglect on the part of black fathers, which should help him with the centrists… good move to refer back to his own father, though, for as Bill Cosby knows, these kinds of comments can backfire!

In the end, might Latinos make the difference? Or will it be the independent white voters who are turned off by an overemphasis on race? All the candidates are hedging their bets at this point, but Obama seems to be pushing all the buttons he’ll have to push to get there.

The Race Card

It's getting ugly on the Democratic Side. 2 observations:

1. The reaction to the Clintons' comments concerning Obama's "fairy tale" candidacy and MLK and LBJ's respective roles in bringing about Civil Rights legislation was a bit overblown... one needs to tread lightly with these topics, of course, but the response was overly theatrical. In the end, we saw this as a way for black leaders to align themselves with Obama while maintaining their official neutrality.

2. The Clinton camp then DID pull out the race card, however, by accusing Obama's camp of trying to play the race card. To quote Geraldine Ferraro (remember her?), now a Hillary (female) attack dog: "The Obama campaign is appealing to their base and their base is the African-American community." If that's not an overt appeal to "Whitey Makes Righty," we don't know what is.

Polling (We all know how painful that can be)

Along with Hillary pulling out a nose hair, we feel that another reason for her victory has been overlooked. While everyone is busy trying to explain how the polls got it so wrong, we feel that the polls actually influenced the outcome in the other direction. With Obama winning by a country mile, independent men felt freed up to vote for John McCain and women felt empowered to tap into their own resentments and go ahead and vote for Hillary so she wouldn't feel so bad.

A self-unfulfilling prophecy, as it were, and yet another reason not to rely on them.

Politics for 1000, Alex

As for the continuing debate over whether or not Hillary's "display of emotion" was contrived or not, we would like to answer in the form of a question.

The original question, that is, that was posed:

“My question is very personal: How do you do it? Who does your hair?”

As far as we go, the answer remains classified.

She's Going, Grrrls...

Well, it seems the "display of emotion," however contrived, is bringing those ladies on the fence back to Hillary's camp-- looks like Obama's going to have to appear on Martha Stewart and get a manicure to turn the tide. Wethinks this may, in fact, be good in the long run to keep Obama from inheriting the "inevitability factor" and the pitfalls that accompany it.

Crocodile Tears

Well, we heard about Hillary getting emotional and-- we admit it-- we felt bad. Tears welling up in her eyes, the stress of not only the campaign but all that she has been through before being laid bare-- gee, we thought, maybe we should give the lady a break. Politically contrived or not, it sounded like the woman was exposing her soul in a way that showed her humanness, a way that may make those women who have been fleeing from her to Obama think twice about "Girl Power" and suffering and their own needs and wants and maybe if they cast our vote for Hillary tomorrow it'll make her feel a little better, especially since Obama's going to win anyway...

It was only after we saw the full clip, where she segues into "that's why we need someone in there that knows what they're going to do on day one" that we realized that we'd been had-- not that she wasn't feeling the pressure and fatigue, but that she seems to be turning her emotions on and off at will to connect with the electorate. Sorry, Hill, but we never knew what to do with crying women anyway.

Republican Roundup

Y'know, the ol' Huckster makes a fair amount of sense, at least with his (written) words "Arrogant Bunker Mentality." Now, if he just wouldn't keep harping on the "sanctity of life" and justification for quarantining AIDS patients...

As for Mitt, J McC had it right when he called him the "Candidate of Change"... this guy is smart enough to know better, and thus has no one to blame but himself for his (newfound) conservative views and blind support of Dubya.

As for McCain, we like the guy, but he talks too damn slow. Besides, we could never support somebody who was proud to call himself a "Reagan Republican."

And we're sorry, while he might be right on Iraq and some other issues, Ron Paul comes off like a bit of a lunatic. Plus, he has two first names.

Obama Nation

Who'd a thunk it... in Iowa, of all places!

Nightmares From His Father

On a related note, Kenya seems to be descending into disarray, with the long-trodden masses of Luos (including opposition leader Raia Odinga), Kalenjins, Luhyas, and other tribes attacking the Kikuyus (and now vice-versa), who make up 20% or so of the population and have traditionally made up the ruling class, currently represented by the (fraudulently) re-elected president, Mwai Kibaki. Up to 50 Kikuyus were burned alive in a church in Kiambaa, and the current tally (according to the NYT) is over 300 casualties overall.

No jokes here (we tried, but even we aren't that callous).