The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

I Just Want You To Know That We’re All Depending On You, Driscoll

Posted on | September 7, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty

Ed Driscoll, emphasis mine:

By last month though, Obama was reduced to shadowing the GOP presidential candidates in the Darth Vader Battle Bus and posing for pictures at the NOAA war room, complete with his plastic name tag on his desk reminding voters — and by now, maybe Obama himself — that he’s still the POTUS. Roger Kimball described the latter photo-op as Obama’s Dukakis in the Tank moment. Totaled-up, last month’s efforts really did make all of the 2008-era imagery look even sillier in retrospect; a zillion dollar Cecil B. DeMille biblical production as reimagined by the producers of Airplane. Surely you can’t be serious, Mr. President.

Interestingly, if you get the Police Squad DVD, Leslie Nielsen notes in an interview that the reason the same slapstick comedy which succeeded for Airplane failed for Police Squad was because in the television format, you actually have to watch the show. For a movie, you’ve bought into being attentive by sitting down; however, either the TV audience is less committed or of lower caliber.

Politics ain’t comedy. The lesson of 2008 is that you can put on a spectacle and win an election. You hold the public attention by being ‘shiny’. The fact that the same spectacle fails to unfold properly when stretch out to a full-on Administration is the fault of neither the predecessor nor the audience. Rather, it’s the abjectly moronic notion that spectacle is politics. Spectacle requires something shiny, not leadership. As we are now witnessing, failure, too, is a form of spectacle. Or kabuki, if you like.

Maybe that’s the only trick this pony knows.

Category: Barack Obama

Comments

5 Responses to “I Just Want You To Know That We’re All Depending On You, Driscoll”

  1. Datechguy's Blog » Blog Archive » They don’t like the Dog food Redux
    September 7th, 2011 @ 9:34 am

    […] Shirley you can’t be serious? Share […]

  2. Bob Belvedere
    September 7th, 2011 @ 3:50 pm

    ‘Shiny’ = shoeshine boy = you’re a raaaaacist!

  3. xianglil
    September 7th, 2011 @ 4:02 pm

    http://tinyurl.com/3tnmjr8

  4. Adjoran
    September 7th, 2011 @ 6:20 pm

    You have to understand that the people who voted for Obama were won over by the huge Styrofoam Greek columns at his Nuremberg, I mean Denver, rally.

    How could you NOT for Obama after seeing those columns?  He’s so awesome!

    Okay, /sarc.  But sadly that’s the level of analysis most of his voters were capable of performing.  Record numbers of young people whose most fervently held belief is that you do NOT need experience (they all want to start at the top, working your way up is sooooo bourgeois) added to record numbers of black voters coming all out for racial pride (don’t try that in YOUR hometown, white folks) added up to millions of votes without a critical thought about his qualifications amongst them.

    Add to that a war-weary public tired of Bush, and a squishy class of swing voters who thought it would be nice gesture to elect a black President.  Again, the question of his being able to do the job was not allowed by the media, and dismissed out of hand by those who fell for “Hopeychange” as a policy.

  5. Anonymous
    September 7th, 2011 @ 6:24 pm

    Oh, and all those euro weenies who just swooned at The Won…happy now?

    How about you anti-war kommies now that you got 2 for 1?

    2012 is coming and paybacks gonna be a bitch