It’s Tuesday, December 10th, 2013, and before we begin, two quick, related questions; First, WTF’s up with Ted Cruz?!?
It’s either the latest sign of Sen. Ted Cruz’s deep admiration for anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela — or the Texas freshman’s latest bit of grandstanding. Either way, Cruz is headed to Johannesburg on Monday to attend a memorial service for the former South African president alongside more than 90 heads of state.
Cruz joins an official Congressional delegation of mostly Democrats such as Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee to attend the Tuesday service at FNB Stadium.
We understand Cruz’s thirst for the limelight and desire to curry favor with Black voters (Yeah…that‘ll work!) in anticipation of a presidential run in 2016; but we’d be far more impressed by Cruz’s strategerie, let alone his new-found respect for Mandela, were he making this pilgrimage on his own nickel.
Second, WTF’s Paul Ryan thinking?!?
Conservative activists determined to keep federal spending as low as possible are not happy about the emerging deal between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-WA). The deal, according to reports, would raise federal discretionary spending from a scheduled $967 billion in 2014, to as much as $1.015 trillion. In exchange for raising spending today, Democrats would promise to cut spending years from now.
Gee…where have we heard this bait-and-switch before?!?
Seriously? No…SERIOUSLY?!?
Now, here’s The Gouge!
Since we’re on the subject of the inexplicable, courtesy of NRO, Charles Cooke plumbs the depths of…
…“Biased” doesn’t cut it. To watch MSNBC for an afternoon is not so much to be given a slanted account of what is happening here in America, but instead to witness a series of discussions about current events in parallel America II — a rather silly place in which the political center of gravity and all things Good are defined by the preferences of the faculty at Berkeley and the comments section of the Daily Kos and in which anyone who dissents from this position is believed to possess two heads, a black heart, and a pocket copy of Mein Kampf.
In a related item, courtesy NRO‘s Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty explores the modern political equivalent of Sunset Boulevard:
Does Everyone in the Administration Think They’re in a Movie?
Allow me to turn your attention to a disturbingly insightful essay from Ace over at Ace of Spades. I’ll presume you’re familiar with the concept of the MacGuffin — Hitchcock’s term for the object that drives the plot of a movie. Ace’s observation is that our political coverage and dialogue has become so wrapped up in the language and narrative of movies, that the condition of the country and actual results of policies have been reduced to MacGuffins:
For Obama’s fan-boys, this is not politics. This isn’t even America, not really, not anymore.
This is a movie. And Barack Obama is the Hero. And the Republicans are the Villains. And policy questions — and Obama’s myriad failures as an executive — are simply incidental. They are MacGuffins only, of no importance whatsoever, except to the extent they provide opportunities for Drama as the Hero fights in favor of them.
Watching Chris Matthews interview Obama, I was struck by just how uninterested in policy questions Matthews (and his panel) were, and how almost every question seemed to be, at heart, about Obama’s emotional response to difficulties — not about policy itself, but about Obama’s Hero’s Journey in navigating the plot of President Barack Obama: The Movie.
As with a MacGuffin in the movie, only the Hero’s emotional response to the MacGuffin matters.
Again and again, Matthews and his panel focused not on weighty questions of state, but on what toll these important-sounding MacGuffins took upon the Star of the Picture, Barack Obama. Matthews was not terribly interested in hearing about the problems with Obamacare, or how Obama planned to address them. But he was very interested in learning how Obama was coping with the challenges.
Matthews didn’t care all that much about disputes over the budget. But he was keenly interested in Obama’s thoughts on his opponents in such struggles.
Of course, it’s not just Obama’s fans who think they’re watching Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing. Back in January 2010, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank had this diagnosis:
Gibbs acts as though he’s playing himself in the movie version of his job. In this imaginary film, he is the smart-alecky press secretary, offering zippy comebacks and cracking jokes to make his questioners look ridiculous. It’s no great feat to make reporters look bad, but this act also sends a televised image of a cocksure White House to ordinary Americans watching at home.
And what movie’s complete without plenty of props?!?
And then just last week, Peggy Noonan echoed that assessment, applying it to the whole administration:
From what I have seen the administration is full of young people who’ve seen the movie but not read the book. They act bright, they know the reference, they’re credentialed. But they’ve only seen the movie about, say, the Cuban missile crisis, and then they get into a foreign-policy question and they’re seeing movies in their heads. They haven’t read the histories, the texts, which carry more information, more texture, data and subtlety, and different points of view.
Andy McCarthy wrote last week that at a time of serious, deepening problems and crises, most of the coverage of the highest levels of our federal government seem reminiscent of a soap opera:
Politics is our reality. It only seems like soap opera because of the way it is covered: Right into your living room, day-in-day-out, celebrity journalists present the adventures of their fellow dramatis personae, celebrity pols. The journalists portray politics, moreover, as suspense, and not just such suspense as the news of the day may warrant by dint of its relative seriousness — an earthquake, the outbreak of a war, or the specter of millions losing health-insurance plans they were promised they could keep. The continuing suspense lies in the practice of politics.
In an increasingly perilous world, politics has to be our response, not our entertainment. Today’s events are not episodes. They are threats, foreign and domestic; and they are no longer on the horizon — they are clear and present dangers. Politics is how we perceive our national interests and take effective action, not how the president manages to weather storms of his own making.
Well, there’s at least one movie depiction of Der Obafuhrer we know to be accurate:
We know him all right; which is why we feel the latter rather than the former.
In the meantime, we can only hope Victor Hanson, writing at PJ Media, is right, and America is…
…Liberals always had thought a right-wing bully president would erode civil liberties. How ironic that a charismatic, post-racial, self-described “constitutional law professor” has done more damage to our Constitution than has any president since Richard Nixon. Had the AP, IRS, or NSA scandals occurred during the Bush second term, congressional Democrats would have been calling for impeachment.
The old controversial presidential signing statements of the past are mere misdemeanors compared to Obama felonies of declaring settled law null and void, from the employer mandate to the implementation guidelines of Obamacare to exempting pet businesses and congressional staffs from the requirements of the law. A president can now decide not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, or grant pre-election, de facto amnesties. Why, then, pass laws in the first place? The idea of political opponents being audited by the IRS or critical journalists having their phones monitored will be Obama’s Nixonian legacy. After Obama, one of two things will happen: either the presidency will be redefined as a sort of super-executive that can both make and enforce statutes, or a constitutional reaction will set in, and Obamism will be cited as a danger to the republic that we wish in the future never to repeat.
Moving on to the B. Hussein Obama “Racism is Alive and Well Wherever and Whenever I Say It Is!” segment, James Taranto asks…
Feel free to write us with your analysis of how this satire on the wildest outcome in a college football game since Cal threaded its way to victory through the Stanford marching band.
And for those requiring further proof rampant racism courses through America’s veins like cocaine in Lindsay Lohan’s, this just in from Kansas City:
Sonic restaurant apologizes for ‘racist’ anti-Redskins sign
Incredibly ill-advised and supremely insensitive? Yes. Racist? Not in a million years!
Next up, here’s a real shocker, courtesy of John Crudele writing at the New York Post who offers the following…
Warning: Jobless Rate May Be Rigged
The most curious thing of all about the November jobs report released on Friday was the huge drop in the unemployment rate — and the fact that the Labor Department chose not to disclose that the data going into that figure are under investigation for falsification.
On Nov. 19, I broke the news in my column that the Census Bureau, which collects data that goes into the jobless rate on behalf of Labor, had caught one of its enumerators fabricating interviews in 2010. The culprit said back then (and to me during an interview) that he was told to do so by Census supervisors who were in the position to instruct others to make similar fabrications.
In fact, a source who I haven’t named but who is familiar with the Census data accumulation process has told me that falsifications have been occurring on a regular basis.
The Census Department surveys that went into the November jobless rate actually took place during the week that included Nov. 5 instead of the normal Nov. 12 week. The Labor Department did put in a note about the survey week change in its November report. But it should also have included another line that said: “The data for the unemployment rate may have been compromised. Lots of people are looking into the matter right now. We’ll get back to you on whether you should believe these numbers or not.”
Why didn’t the Labor Department include a note like that? A source who knows the department well says the concept of data being falsified is so unprecedented that the bureaucrats just don’t know how to react.
“…the concept of data being falsified is so unprecedented“; under this Administration?!? Yeah…
Turning now to the Lighter Side…
Finally, in News of the Bizarre…but absolutely understandable…
Man Leaps to His Death in Shopping Mall After Girlfriend Insists on More Shopping
A 38-year-old man leaped to his death after an argument with his girlfriend who insisted they continue shopping. CCTV captured Tao Hsiao and his girlfriend in a mall in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, east China where they had reportedly been shopping for five hours or so before he hit his limit.
Eyewitnesses said Hsiao could be heard telling his girlfriend that they already had more bags than they could carry, but she insisted on hitting one more store where there was a sale on shoes. An eyewitness said: “He told her she already had enough shoes, more shoes that she could wear in a lifetime, and it was pointless buying any more. She started shouting at him, accusing him of being a skinflint, and of spoiling Christmas. It was a really heated argument.”
The argument continued until Hsiao threw the bags on the floor and himself over the balcony, dropping seven stories to his death and smashing Christmas decorations on the way down. He was killed on impact.
One might say she shopped…’til he dropped! But here’s the best part:
A spokesman for the mall said: “His body was removed fairly quickly. He actually landed on one of the stalls below and then fell to the floor so although the store was damaged it meant he didn’t hit anybody.”
Obviously a guy who looks at the glass half full…unlike Hsiao!
Magoo
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