Just another post-modern quest for meaning.
Oh God. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Paris Hilton (to be more specific, whoever wrote this song for her) is actually kind of witty in this video:
But you know, I bet Paris knows that the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee freedom from the press, and that would mean she’s just a little more capable than the current VP on the Republican ticket.
I’m still not sure exactly what it is about country and western music that makes me want to puncture my own eardrums every time they’re assaulted by it. Perhaps one of the reasons is the boastful ignorance that some of its mascots, such as Hank Williams Jr., display in songs like “McCain – Palin Tradition”:
Here’s an interesting analysis of his lyrics by Chris Rasmussen at The Pitch, Kansas City.
The part I found most interesting, however, was the accusation that Bill Clinton was to blame for the current economic crisis. Now, just using some pretty straight forward reasoning, you’d wonder how anything that was put into policy eight years ago would be able to turn into such an economic snowball without George Bush and his cronies noticing. Yes, Dubyah did look pretty surprised when he made his announcement that there was suddenly a crisis and that there would need to be a bailout… but come on! That said, I haven’t yet heard of a President that didn’t make mistakes, so perhaps Hank’s hyperbole had some basis in reality? I liked this analysis, which seems pretty balanced. It recognizes some policy decisions made by Clinton that made the conditions for the crisis possible. But it also recognizes the abuse of those policies over the last 8 years that made these problems what they are today.
It’s a classic right wing argument, the same sort of argument that would blame school shootings on Marylin Manson albums. There’s no question that you can find dark and violent themes in Manson’s music (he would argue, of course, that this is simply a reflection of our violent age), but when do the parents, the schools, and various members of society that were involved in a misguided kid’s life start sharing some of the responsibility for how he was raised? Perhaps Manson himself put it best: “Raise your kids better or I’ll be raising them for you.”
Verdict? Williams’ lyrics are trite and have only a tiny foothold on reality, but we’ll likely be hearing them quoted by die-hard right wingers with the same fervor as they quote passages from the Old Testament for at least another couple of weeks.
Presidential debates would certainly be more entertaining if they followed this format, though I have my doubts that John McCain or Sarah Palin have anything close to these moves…
Perhaps Katie Couric should donate one of her steel balls to Drew Griffin. If you can stand this entire video, you will be rewarded with a demonstration of spoon feeding at its finest. Every so often, you think he’s going to ask a real question, though deep in your heart you know that the wise old buzzards in the Republican party have learned their lesson and will now only let Sarah Palin do interviews with hacks.
John McCain announced today that he loves being the underdog and, “My friends, we’ve got ‘em just where we want ‘em!” And, you know, this sounds like a pretty authentic statement from a guy who thought the U.S. could have won in Vietnam if they’d just stayed a little longer and who doesn’t believe in a time-line for withdrawal from Iraq. With McCain appearing (finally) on David Letterman and Sarah Palin making her debut on Saturday Night Live, it looks like it’s all style over substance from here on in, which is sort of funny when you remember that this is an accusation normally made against Barack Obama. It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for John McCain. It’s like watching your own grandpa make a fool out of himself on prime time TV. You’d like to coax him out of the spotlight somehow. “Grandpa, it’s time for your nap.” But it’s no use. The Republican machine has been brought up to full steam, and it will not even consider the possibility of failure, even if that would mean saving the poor old man some dignity.
As Rolling Stone’s Make Believe Maverick article points out, McCain’s sources of dignity may indeed be fictional. Among the many insights into his history, we find that McCain “had a knack for stalling out his planes in midflight” and that it was only his family’s influence that allowed him to fly long enough to be shot down over North Vietnam. Sort of makes the whole POW story a little less compelling, doesn’t it? Now, I’m not sure I trust that Rolling Stone is composed of top notch investigative journalists, but the story does raise a lot of interesting questions about the real John McCain – and he wanted this campaign to be about character, right?
Alas, Colin Powell made sure to deliver another blow to everyone’s favorite underdog today by publicly endorsing Obama.
I like Powell. I’m still surprised that he sticks by the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and is a member of the Republican Party, given that he’s always seemed to be much more diplomatic and responsible than that, but in my mind he makes up for it by giving great props to the guy who will be the next President so long as rational folks can outnumber the idiots at the voting stations.
Some might say that Keith Olbermann is being a bit harsh in this video. Those people would be wrong. I was in absolute disbelief this weekend over comments like this:
Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country?
This comment refers to William C. Ayers, who was a radical in the sixties and part of the Weather Underground. He has long since been cleared of any charges to do with what the Weather Underground was involved in, and went on to participate in various charity groups, one of which Obama also took part in.
Enjoy. May the McCain/Palin campaign go down in glorious flames.
Page optimized by WP Minify WordPress Plugin