Category Archives: Movies
Best Picture to Kill an Ambassador
In a weird turn on Oscar night, Michelle Obama, flanked by U.S. military, announced Argo as the Best Picture winner. Some thought it was a little bizarre. I thought it was a little brazen. Argo is about the rescue of American embassy personnel from Islamist fanatics in Iran in 1979. Her husband, the president, was about not rescuing American embassy personnel from Islamist fanatics in Libya in 2012 – and then blaming it on a movie.
Mongo
Alex Karras died Wednesday. He played football for the Detroit Lions. He was also a pretty funny guy who appeared on on Johnny Carson and in movies.
In one of Karras’ most famous scenes, as Mongo in Mell Brook’s “Blazing Saddles”, he slugged a horse knocking it out cold. Blazing saddles could not be made today. There would be naked starlet PETA protests (this is bad?), and the horse would be evaluated against his baseline concussion history and required to sit out for at least a week. Blazing Saddles mocked race relations, sexuality, Hollywood, the American Frontier, and Methodists. It fails the Civil Discourse test miserably. It’s hilarious.
I asked a really bright and hip young woman editor if she knew who Mongo was. She said, ” I can’t believe it! You’re the second person to ask me that today and until now, no, I’d never heard of him.”
Pop culture references are tricky.
Hating a Movie
The Obama administration insists the murder of an ambassador and three others amounts to nothing more than a thumbs down review of a bad movie. The administration of Mohammad el-Magarief (Libyan president) says it was a planned terror attack.
9/11 Tribute
Islamists flew their black flag over the American embassy in Egypt, burned the U.S. consulate in Libya, and murdered four of its staff, including ambassador Chris Stevens - because they hate us, though they say it was because the didn’t like a movie. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo issued an apology for the movie. Romney immediately came swinging from the trees to attack the apology. Obama was shocked, shocked by Romney’s attack. Obama condemned Romney, then condemned the attackers, and retracted the apology for the movie. Hillary condemned the Libya attack too, but then apologized for the movie.
The Real Clear Politics Morning Note compared Obama’s response favorably to Bush’s original 9/11 response:
“The American people need to know that we’re facing a different enemy than we have ever faced,” Bush added. “This enemy hides in shadows, and has no regard for human life. This is an enemy who preys on innocent and unsuspecting people, then runs for cover. But it won’t be able to run for cover forever. This is an enemy that tries to hide. But it won’t be able to hide forever. This is an enemy that thinks its harbors are safe. But they won’t be safe forever.”
On the 11th anniversary of those attacks, the United States was targeted again, this time in Egypt and Libya. Once again, the initial governmental response from the administration was not commensurate with the threat. But today – 11 years to the day that Bush found his voice – President Barack Obama released a forceful statement of his own.
“I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens,” the president said this morning. “Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America’s commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.”
Colorado Shooting Jokers
ABC news had to apologize for a Brian Ross report that James Holmes, the Colorado shooting suspect, might be a member of the Tea Party. (Read more about the ABC News Colorado shooting apology.)
Tea Partiers are mostly middle aged conservatives who believe in the constitution and clean up their own messes, but their fiendish foes continue to portray them as violent radicals.
Here’s a John Kass column from the Chicago Tribune about political bias and the Colorado Massacre.
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