Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Seems like a silly question, I suppose it is one, but it is becoming the question of the hour:
The left has a decision to make: Is it going to try to repackage the starry-eyed romance and dreamy magic of Barack Obama from four years ago or build a rationale for his reelection based on lessons learned and a plausible critique of the president’s performance in office. Perhaps it will need to acknowledge that the idolization of Obama was a one-time phenomena and that voters, desperate for some results, will be impatient with proselytizing from the Obama camp.
A good test is approaching. Next Monday, June 4, will be the four-year anniversary of the speech candidate Obama gave celebrating his delegate count, which would make him the certain Democrat nominee. He took the occasion to state what he thought his presidency foretold. Of his own nomination victory, Obama said, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.” He let others really lay it on thick. You would think the retrospective absurdity of this quote would make liberals a little cautious, if not embarrassed, and cause them to rethink how they enabled Obama. We will see how this is hidden or celebrated in the next few days.
:
Many on the left have lost any insight into their own bias; nothing Obama says is over the top, and nothing he has done lacks significance or inspiration. Likewise, nothing Romney says or has done amounts to much. By forcing a halo upon Obama, suggesting dark hearts among any who don’t see it and follow, and ignoring the virtues of a decent man like Romney, does not serve the president well. It stirs resentment among voters who chafe at being told to love him or else.
Hat tip to Ace of Spades, by way of Bird Dog at Maggie’s Farm.
The Washington Post item links to a Frank Bruni column called “The Emotional Tug of Obama”…which I don’t know how to excerpt…well…ah, here’s a suitable nugget of silliness:
He still personifies the hope, to borrow a noun that he has used, that we really might evolve into the colorblind, fair-minded country that many of us want. His own saga taps into the larger story of this country’s fitful, unfinished progress toward its stated ideal of equal opportunity.
And that gives many voters an emotional connection to him that they simply don’t have to most other politicians, including Romney, a privileged and intensely private man whose strengths don’t include the easy ability to humanize himself…
Some people never learn, I suppose.
As far as the strategic question about how to sell President Obama, it’s purely a cost/benefit decision and they probably did not make the wrong one. It’s self-evident that the product did have this much sizzle, four years ago, to get itself sold; question is, does it retain it. All stupid fads have a shelf-life. But there’s never any logical predicting, it seems, about how long the shelf life is going to be, now is there?
Who knows, maybe the country will double down too. We’ll round it out to a full eight years of being starry-eyed…we’re just not that interested in things that work, we just want to feel inspired. Be seen swearing slavish devotion to the right things…abdicating our own responsibilities to make the right decisions…and do a lot of mooching.
Well on the upside, it gives us an excuse to watch this again:
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As far as the strategic question about how to sell President Obama….
I’m pretty sure they’re going to use a two-pronged offensive: “Romney is a Mormon weirdo cultist” and “screw big business.”
Which, to be fair, if I were a soulless socialist hack who only cared about power (i.e., a Democrat), that’s the route I’d go, too — hating Mormons is about the only completely acceptable prejudice left in America, and as for big business, well, I know more than a few conservatives who do things like download MP3s illegally because record companies suck so screw those guys.
And I’m afraid it’s going to work. If I had to bet, I’d bet that almost every single American under the age of about 35 would much rather vote for a naive incompetent than a shill for evil, ruthless Corporate America(tm). And, of course, nobody will notice that we know far more about Mitt Romney’s hairstyle preferences from 1963 than we do about President Obama’s nationality, grades, taxes, classes, associates, and pets.
Sigh. We get the government we deserve.
- Severian | 05/30/2012 @ 09:38I miss the old HamNation videos. I guess that’s what happens when you’re on TV frequently: no more time for fun and games.
I still remember the GOTV video in 2004 which looked like one of those 900 phone sex numbers. Pretty funny stuff.
- Physics Geek | 05/30/2012 @ 09:42