Reasonable Conservative Jon Swift helpfully illuminates recent McCain campaign strategies, showing us the linear progression from branding the electorate pussies, to whimpering in front of sausage and fudge restaurants, to countering Democratic GOTV efforts with negative advertising and vehicular homicide.

Read and Be Reasonable.

Now a word from our sponsor | 11 Comments »

Our old friend Andrew Klavan (see here) has emerged from the cineplex with a trembling sense of awe; he has stumbled to his knees, cast his moist, yearning eyes heavenward, and seen a revelation glowing from the underbelly of the sky…

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a “W.”

Yes, Andrew has jumped on the meme-wagon and joined other conservative cineastes in declaring that George W. Bush is Super-President!

There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war.

Well, there’s no question as long as the movie remains popular.  If it had debuted to the kind of notices and box office that, say, Batman and Robin did, I doubt the Conservateriate would be hugging it to their bodies and screaming, “Mine!  Mine!  Mine!” like Daffy Duck hoarding a mound of jewels in Ali Baba Bunny.

Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

Of course, if you can make an emergency last long enough (did that Terrorist Color Swatch Chart ever drop below fuchsia?) then blown boundaries become the norm and you don’t have to restore squat.  And unlike W, at least The Batman lost a little sleep over using the Constitution as a mud-butler.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

Or you can split the difference and drop the “free” part, then everybody can knock off early and meet for Long Island Iced Teas and Double-Stuffed Potato Skins at Bennigan’s.  We can just Fed-Ex the rest of your civil rights to Hell in the morning…I’ll leave a note on Jerri’s desk.

“The Dark Knight,” then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror.  And like another such film, last year’s “300,” “The Dark Knight” is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Maybe they should fire Dana Perino and hire Frank Miller.  Forget press conferences, and just issue all Presidential statements in comic book form.  I mean, they’re already halfway there; just install a fireman’s pole, a super-computer, and a giant penny in Cheney’s Secure Undisclosed Location, and you’ve got instant Bat Cave.  Get someone from DC or Marvel to design uniforms — we already know Bush enjoys dressing up in costumes — and get David Frum working on a catchphrase.  Not only would this finally restore a bit of honor and dignity to the White House, it would be revenue-neutral, since all costs could be defrayed by merchandising deals and cross-promotional tie-ins with Burger King.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror — films like “In The Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Redacted” — which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense — values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right — only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like “300,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Narnia,” “Spiderman 3″ and now “The Dark Knight”?

Wow.  This takes the art of the rhetorical question to a whole new level, doesn’t it?

When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve.

Well, we railroad obscure, powerless underlings while insulating management from accountability, but sure, I get your point.

As Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, “He has to run away — because we have to chase him.”

That’s real moral complexity.

And real fruit flavor!

And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised — then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

Perhaps that’s when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day.

Hell, I’d be satisfied if they’d just start by taking off the two wetsuits and pulling the dildoes out of their ass.  At least during business hours.

So I guess the lesson is, conservatives aren’t biologically capable of producing good, popular movies, but they’re certainly eager to adopt them as their own.  Which I guess makes them the moral equivalent of a married gay couple with a nesting instinct.

President Bush in the upcoming summer blockbuster, Super President vs. The G-8!

Tinsel Town Talk | 25 Comments »

From The Corner

PHEW   []

I read that Obama had 200,000 people at his rally today. The pope has him beat — my friends at The National Catholic Register tell me “nearly 300,000″ went to see B16 last weekend in Australia. It’s not that my faith would have been tested had Obama managed more. But I can’t speak for stricter numbers watchers, so I like the safety in bigger papal numbers.

I assume this competition will follow the usual path of escalation:  trash-talk, shoulder-shoves, then the whole thing will climax with Senator Obama and Pope Benedict drag-racing for pink slips.

Waaah! | 9 Comments »

Via Roy we see that Erik the Red-Faced is giving himself a subarachnoid haemorrhage over news that as many as a million people may attend Obama’s speech in Berlin.

Barack Obamessiah Goes To Berlin: Not Since 1939 Have So Many Germans Turned Out To Hear A Politician in Berlin Irony Thy Name Is Barack Obama

“Berlin authorities say that as many as a million people could attend. Four TV stations are broadcasting the entire speech, and the rest are scrambling to secure prime locations at the site.”

Originally, the column was in a different location, but Hitler moved it in 1939 to its present location. He too wanted a beautiful stage and backdrop in Berlin. I’ll refrain from pointing out the irony here.

Thanks for the praeteritio, as Doghouse Riley might say.  And in turn, I’ll refrain from posting a picture of Reagan laying a wreath at Kolmeshöhe Cemetery near Bitburg, because now that I think about it, there really wasn’t any irony involved.  It actually did contain Nazis.

Oh what the hell.

Fast forward from 1939 to 2008 and Barack Obama will take the stage at the Victory Column. I’m sure Barack Obama is unperturbed by the military and Nazi history of the Victory Column and only recognizes it as being in U2′s video for “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)”.

And the Wim Wenders film, Wings of Desire, which depicts the Siegessäule as a hang-out for off-duty angels.  However the use of the words “Nazi history” is a bit misleading, since the column was erected in 1873 to celebrate Prussia’s victories over Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866 and France in 1870. All before Hitler had been born.  The Fuhrer’s involvement with the pillar seems largely limited to an order to move the damn thing, because it was in the way of his plans for a grand remodeling of the Reichstag neighborhood.

So Erik is guilty of a typically tendentious bit of wingnut hackery, but as these things go it’s a fairly mild spasm of intellectual dishonesty, the kind of thing cranked out at The Corner on a minute-by-minute basis, nothing particularly entertaining or–

But, okay, I can’t help myself, Barack Obama is using propaganda FILMED IN GERMANY MADE POSSIBLE BY THE NAZIS RELOCATING THE FREAKING STATUTE!!!!!!! to woo Americans to vote for him. He’s going to have freaking film crews there and the media to make sure the full emotional impact reaches back to the United States.

Check that.  Popcorn, anyone?

The man has no shame. He’ll say anything and do anything to get himself elected.

He’ll even stand in front of Prussian monuments that are not where they originally were!  And the pillar was probably dismantled by Nazi construction workers with SS cranes and Nazi block and tackle and moved by members of the Fuhrer’s Own 18-Wheel Trucker Korps!

Oh, and you lefties who would point out Kennedy and Reagan at the Brandenburg gate fail to understand history.  They were there on substantive matters in relations between the East and West during the Cold War.

Right, right.  What about when Clinton spoke there?

What purpose does Obama have other than campaigning for office and whipping up the crowd into a frenzy?

Well, he’s also hurting your feelings, but I’m not so sure if that’s a purpose or just a bonus.

He is not, after all, an elected world leader. Oh, and then there is the total number of attendees? Only half of Berlin was able to show up for Kennedy and Reagan.

There was a scheduling conflict.  ABBA was in town.

Get the Butterfly Net! | 6 Comments »

We’ve been informed by a reliable scource (who we’ll call NotHoward Kurtz) that today is the natal anniversary of veteran Wo’C commenter heydave.  Other people born on this auspicious day include:

Jennifer Aniston’s father, Mel Tillis’ daughter, liberator of South American Simon Bolivar,  baseball great Barry Bonds, who acquired superpowers after a freak accident in a steroid lab, breast-possessing actress Lynda Carter, who’s performance as Wonder Woman remains the definitive interpretation of the character for men who were aged 10 to 34 in the years 1975 through 1979, Charles S Johnson, the distinguished sociologist and civil rights pioneer, who wrote the classic study, The Negro in Chicago (hmmm.  Coincidence…?), and Michael Richards, actor, comedian and not-civil rights pioneer.

According to some internet horoscope site for people born on July 24th:

As we arrive fully in the Leo sun sign we see the emotional part of being on the Leo-Cancer cusp disappear, replaced with nervous energy in all phases of the persons life. They are up for the challenge. You wont see this person sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch. They are seeking all kinds new physical, social and most of all sexual experiences.

So you’ll see them having sex in a rocking chair on the front porch.  Kids, they’re just “telling secrets.”

The ruling planet for today is Venus, along with the Sun, ruling planet for Leo, really turns up the heat in the kitchen.

So the insatiable July 24th’ers will be having sex in there too, I guess.  Just don’t forget to check the burners for heat before you bend your partner over the stove.  And have a happy birthday, Dave.  Also enjoy our free gift to you; a photo of a live Fascist and a dead one, to symbolize the Circle of Life.

Birthdays | 12 Comments »

Conservative film blogger Dirty Harry saw The Dark Knight, and divined something many less incisive critics missed:

The Dark Knight may well be the most conservative movie since 300. There’s just no arguing that the Joker is al-Qaeda and Batman George W. Bush. In between are the citizens of Gotham who have a choice: They can cave to terror, turn on their protector and blame his aggressive crime fighting for the rise of the Joker, or they can understand that appeasing a criminal status quo in their city doesn’t convince the Joker’s of the world to see the light and enroll at community college.

Well thanks for the spoiler, Harry (may I call you Dirty?)  I haven’t seen the movie yet, but if The Batman is supposed to represent George W. Bush, we can pretty much guess the plot:  The Joker unleashes a reign of terror, The Dark Knight vows to bring him in, dead or alive, then spends the rest of the film chasing after Kite Man.

(By the way, since the Bush Administration plainly can’t be bothered to hunt for bin Laden in Pakistan, maybe they should try looking for him in community college.  It’s just possible he was tempted by the lower tuition rates, flexible class schedules, and wide selection of vocational courses.)

Movies | 21 Comments »

You may recall that last month, Janet Folger was heading to Colorado to become a martyr for segregated plumbing.  And for those of you wondering how she fared when the whip came down (anyone?  No one?  Okay…) she’s back to recount her horrifying time as a POW in the Homo Hilton.

A jail cell with your name on it?

It’s been quite a month.

On July 1, I was in Denver breaking the new state law by handing out my book, “The Criminalization of Christianity: Read this before it becomes Illegal.” Although I was a bit high-profile to arrest right now, the “Bible Ban Bathroom Bill” (SB 200 – now law) I was protesting not only welcomes men wearing dresses into your daughter’s shower room, it bans books like mine and … the Bible.

I’m actually thinking of getting out of satire completely, because when the job requires you to top “Bible Ban Bathroom Bill,” it’s just too damn much like real work.  I mean, she didn’t even build up to that; it was in the second paragraph!  Where are you supposed to go after that?

All the talk of “tolerance” is coming from the most intolerant folks around. They scream and shout about “hate” but spew it more than any other group in America.

All, still working the old “tolerant”-liberals-are-intolerant-of-my-intolerance wheeze, eh?  Well, Sally Rand was born in 1904, yet she was still ambulatory enough to fan dance for the Mercury astronauts, so shake your moneymaker Janet.

As I spelled out in my book, the name-calling is just the first step.

Step 1: Ridicule

Lable anyone who disagrees an “ignorant, hateful, intolerant, bigot.” Yep, old-fashioned name-calling, seen on playgrounds for centuries. We would do well to remember some lessons from grammar school: Bully appeasement doesn’t work – and losing your lunch money is just the beginning.

Strangely enough, as I remember the old schoolyard pecking order, it generally wasn’t the bigots who were most at risk of being bullied.  In fact, without going to the Venn Diagram, I’m pretty sure there was a significant amount of overlap between those two groups.

Step 2: Blame

I’ve seen it from the same group firsthand. Yes, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed another little gem 10 years ago against those of us who expressed hope for change for those struggling with homosexuality with an ad campaign featuring ex-homosexuals (850 were in one photo). We disagreed with them, so they blamed us for the death of Matthew Shepard: “It’s not an exaggeration to say that there’s a direct correlation between these acts of discrimination, like Matthew Shepard, such as when gays and lesbians are called sinful and when major religious organizations say they can change if they try, and the horrible crimes committed against gays and lesbians.”

Janet wrote more about this public service campaign here:

In 1998, I oversaw the national “Truth in Love” campaign, which expressed hope for change for those struggling in homosexuality – something for which I was accused of murder. Here’s a sample of one of the full-page “Truth-in-Love” campaign ads that caused all the commotion. One ad pictured 850 ex-homosexuals with the headline, “We’re standing for the truth that homosexuals can change.” Brace yourself for “hateful,” “bigoted” and “intolerant” speech said to be responsible for murder. (Note: If you’re under 18, you may want to ask your parents before reading it.):

“We believe every human being is precious to God and is entitled to respect. But when we see great suffering among homosexuals, it’s an inherent Christian calling to show compassion and concern.”

Wow. With words like “precious,” “respect,” “compassion” and “concern,” you can understand why the city of San Francisco would be prompted to accuse us of murder

That does seem unreasonable, especially when you factor in the sincere and respectful words with which Janet began her column:

I’ve already told you about how H.R. 1592 will destroy equal justice (setting up a victim hierarchy), set up a Gay Gestapo with unlimited funds and send grandma to jail for sharing her faith on the public sidewalk

See, it happens every time.  You craft a loving, sincere call for sinners to stop their abominations and return to the fold, but do they thank you?  No!  Instead, they have the effrontery to question your motives by going behind your back and reading all the stuff you wrote about them when you thought they weren’t looking!  No wonder people hate the queers so much.

Step 3: Censorship

That’s what the San Francisco Board of Supervisors tried to do to us 10 years ago: All dissenters must be silenced! And if they won’t be intimidated into submission; they’ll do it with whatever club they can find: resolutions (like the one that passed unanimously), court action and the law – from thought crimes to the redefinition of marriage. For those of you keeping track, that’s exactly where we are in the agenda from the group that screams of “tolerance” and “diversity.”

Also for those of you keeping track, remember that Freedom is a zero-sum game, so if you grant gays the same right to marry that straight couples enjoy, you actually take rights away from Janet.

I can argue why marriage matters for the continuation of civilization. I can tell you about every study that shows without a doubt that children do best with both a mother and a father.

Okay, leaving aside the (admittedly anecdotal) point that most gay couples I know don’t have children, here’s something that’s always bothered me.  If extending equal rights to gays and lesbians is going to break apart straight families, then how come the absence of gay marriage didn’t keep my parents together when I was a kid?
ME:  Daddy!  Stop packing!  Homosexuals are still barred from entering into a union analogous to traditional marriage!
MY DAD:  Awww, crap.  Here, help me put my shoe-trees back in the closet.

But let me cut to the chase: If we don’t win the marriage battle, now on the ballot in California, Florida and Arizona, people who disagree with homosexual behavior will … go to jail.

Wait a second…!  What’s with the future tense, here?  Janet told us last month she was going to Colorado to commit civil disobedience and get arrested for violating the Bible Bathroom Ban!  Don’t tell me we read this far only to discover that she wimped out and that “Cat,” the alpha dyke on the cellblock hasn’t spent the last three weeks making Janet her bitch!

People in California are starting to understand just what is at stake in the battle for marriage – freedom itself.

When the church was persecuted in England and Europe, our Founding Fathers came to America for freedom. People still build boats from scrap wood to try to come here for a glimpse of it. America is the last, best hope of the world. If we lose, there is nowhere else to go.

Just imagine the heart-wrenching scene:  a leaky boat full of Cubans who are yearning to breathe free approaches the shores of the promised land, only to be turned back at the last moment by a pod of magical dolphins who inform the desperate refugees that they were better off at home, because the Girls bathrooms in America’s grammar schools are crowded with gay men, and you can’t even say “fag” anymore.

America will remain the land of the free only as long as it is the home of the brave. If you care about America’s freedoms, muster the courage to stand up, sign up and speak up for marriage and McCain.

Well, speak up for second marriages and McCain.  The first one is really just practice.

Live from the Asylum | 14 Comments »

The only excuse for David Brooks’ existence is the fuel he supplies to the dyspetic fires roaring in the belly of Doghouse Riley.  According to Brooks, the GOP has experienced a Harmonic Convergence of Crap; the signs, portents, and polls all indicate that it’s time to reposition the Brand, and the party elders have summoned their most fecund minds to the tribal think tanks, where the intellectual warriors are purified with bran muffins and spring water before gathering in a drum circle to spit-ball, strategize, and eventually grunt out the political equivalent of New Coke.

And as usual, the Hoosier Sage sums it up best:

Now you think admitting that the pooch got screwed! somehow! is enough, and if you just congratulate yourselves long and loud enough for your Reagan fanboydom Ross’ll be able to figure out how to repackage all those old Welfare Queen anecdotes for a generation that would rather not be known as unrepentantly racist, and you’ll be back on top again. Pluck a Duck, even Reagan, an almost wholly fictional creation, was sold to the rubes as Good for America! You people don’t even care anymore. There are serious consequences to your behavior the past quarter-century, serious as a fucking tumor, and none of them have to do with the fate of your think tanks, though a lot of them have to do with their output. The Reagan Revolution did not take a wrong turn. It arrived. You have not hit a rough patch; you’ve been found out. In a less well-off, less compromised, more socially responsible nation you people would be sharing an ice floe, debating whether its shrinking dimensions were just more of Al Gore’s propaganda.

Some may dispute that the pen is mightier than the sword.  But there’s few things more therapeutic for a suffering body politic than a lancet dipped in Northern Copperhead venom.  Click and enjoy.  It’ll only sting for a moment.

Now a word from our sponsor | 1 Comment »

A court case has been filed on behalf of a 28-year old chimp, and Pat Boone thinks it’s a madhouse, a madhouse…!

Matthew’s lawyer says he only wants his client to be treated like a human child, to be declared a person, and granted four of about 50 rights enjoyed by Europeans: the right to life, limited freedom of movement, personal safety and the right to claim property. And of course, a legal guardian.

In this country, he’d be lining up for food stamps, health care, a driver’s license, unemployment insurance, registration to vote (Democrat) – and, maybe later, application for citizenship.

I’m beginning to think Dr. Zaius was right.  Anyway, Pat doesn’t really care whether some Eurotrash judge grants citizenship to a lower primate, which would then, just as likely as not, gratefully present the magistrate with a fistful of ballistic crap.  However, the case does offer a chance for Pat to offer a sampling of the cutting edge political humor which has led some aficionados to call him the Bill Hicks of the Sansabelt and Early Bird Special set:

Why not run for public office? According to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Atlanta’s Emory University, chimps share 98.5 percent of human DNA – roughly the same as some career politicians! The same study claims the ape family shares many of the same characteristics as humans, but not capacity for written language or complex emotions, such as guilt or shame. Sounds perfect for some congressional seats, some court benches and chairmanship of some big oil companies.

I’ll give you a moment to catch your breath; I’m sure I heard a couple of you laughing so hard you did a Metamucil noser; although it could also have been the wheezing typical of a heart attack.

Still, some legal analysts warn of a danger in giving apes equal legal status because an animal’s rights could conflict or even supersede a human’s rights in future court rulings, says USA Today. Richard Cupp, at Pepperdine University’s School of Law, having written extensively on animal vs. human rights, says, “I’d call it a slippery-slope-plus.”

By now you can probably see the man-on-dog moment approaching from miles away…”If we let gays marry, then Jane will leave Tarzan for Cheetah!”

I guess so …next thing you know, the flaky California Supreme Court, already declaring that marriage no longer has to be defined as a covenant between one man and one woman, may quickly grant that status with all its benefits to a man and his chimp, a woman and her ape, or – God forbid – two male gorillas!

Which is as good an opening as any to plug Pat’s upcoming show at the Comedy Pet Theater in Branson, Missouri, where today’s conflation of monkeys and minorities was just as taste of the hilarity Pat has in store for you.  (I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so I’ll just say…if you thought John McCain’s woman-raped-by-a-gorilla jokes were hilarious, well then, buckle your seatbelts boys, ’cause Pat and his sidekick Koko are about to tickle your funny bone with some of today’s finest in non-consensual transpecies humor.  Oh, and ladies, be sure to dress modestly, or Koko might think you’re asking for it.)

On a more serious note, I’d like to take a moment to address an issue of utmost importance to Pat’s readers, judging by the ads accompanying his column:

For too long, America has been sidetracked by weepy-eyed liberal issues like poverty, teen pregnancy, failing inner city schools, and rising income disparity, while ignoring a problem that torments many of the Bush Administrations’ most loyal supporters; an affliction which weakens our moral authority in the Free World, and robs us of the confidence necessary to carelessly fling “crappy little countries against the wall” and advise them to “Suck.  On.  This.”  No red-blooded American male can dare issue such a bold challenge if he is secretly nursing the heartbreak of Man Boobs.  Suppose the jihadis took him up on his dare and indeed sucked it?  Or sucked BOTH of them?  Even worse, suppose, while they were flagrantly sucking on it, his nipples become engorged, and his Man Junk grew tumescent.  And worst of all, suppose all this arousal caused him to began lactating from that pendulous maternal pair he’s concealing behind an Ace bandage and an oversized Chicago Bears stadium parka?

This, my friends, is what killed the Roman Empire:  Man/Monkey marriages and a superabundance of He-Hooters.  Also, jungle music, but we’re okay on that score, because Pat Boone stood athwart History and shouted, “Stop.  In the name of love!  Hey, that’s a pretty good song.  Mind if I rip that off and sing it on the Perry Como Show while you wallow in the ghetto obscurity of Chess Records?  Cool, thanks for the meal ticket. By the way, did anyone ever tell you that you bear a crazy resemblence to a chimp…?”

No Country For Old Men | 16 Comments »

Riley likes to spend her leisure time huffing sweatsocks:

Then getting totally paranoid whenever she hears the bedroom door open…

What?!  I wasn’t doing anything in here!

While Moondoggie prefers to brood for hours on end, then go tweak his Favorite Bands of The Moment list on Facebook:

I’m thinking of going emo…

Wild Things | 2 Comments »