http://youtube.com/v/A1sT5iMW8qo
Happy birthday to the greatest nation in human history!
Month: July 2009
Palin 2012 Begins Today? (Updated)
Sarah Palin just shocked everyone by announcing that she is stepping down as governor of Alaska at the end of the month, before her first term in office is even up. From what I can tell between her official statement and her brother’s remarks to Fox News, she’s citing the following reasons:
– her administration has largely accomplished in 2 years what they promised to do in 4
– fighting the onslaught of false & frivolous ethics complaints has become so costly to Alaskan taxpayers and consumed so much of her and her staff’s time that state business has inevitably gotten the short end of the stick
– she doesn’t feel she can do any good as a lame-duck governor, and new Governor Scott Parnell will ultimately be better for the state
– she feels she can best serve the country by fighting for conservative causes and individuals in as-yet unspecified ways
We’ll have to wait to see what she does post-office to know for sure, but it smells to me like Sarah Palin is running for President of the United States.
Jim Geraghty says her career is good as dead, and Morrissey & Co. are not amused, while Bill Kristol thinks stepping down could be shrewd. I more or less agree with Kristol’s high-risk/high-reward assessment. She’s risking criticisms that she can’t take the heat of the opposition and that she’s abandoning Alaska to her own ambition (between now and November 2010 is long for a “lame duck” period), both charges that could have been avoided by waiting out the rest of her term. On the other hand, I have no doubt that the cost of fighting the smear campaign, both to the state and to the Palin family, is tremendous. If she spends the next couple years boning up on foreign policy and genuinely fighting for conservative causes (Mitt Romney made a similar pledge, but his follow-through has been underwhelming so far), it’ll be time well spent, and she’ll be a formidable candidate come campaign season. The Democrats have surely noticed slipping support for Barack Obama’s policies, and they can’t be thrilled at the prospect of somebody with Palin’s popularity and communication skills, free from the shackles of public office, becoming a regular spokeswoman against The One.
I also want to note one thing that caught my eye: Palin’s pledge to support good candidates regardless of “what party they’re in or no party at all.” Could that be a warning that she won’t take lightly to liberalizing the Republican Party, and is willing to take her chances as an independent conservative? Maybe I’m reading too much into a mere rhetorical bone thrown to bipartisanship, but resercons should tread lightly…
If nothing else, we can thank Sarah Palin for this: she got the talking heads to shut up about Michael Jackson for the longest period yet since he died.
UPDATE: Allah thinks she’s out of luck for 2012 but is really angling for 2016. I doubt it—if she’s waiting another four years, then that would be all the more reason to finish her current term. Naturally, speculation abounds that this is preemptive damage control for an impending monster scandal (maybe Dr. Sullivan has finally cracked the Trig case!). I’m skeptical (of course the nutroots are gonna take the most disastrous possible option), but we’ll see.
UPDATE 2: Full disclosure: in retrospect, I think my early declarations that “Palin 2012 Begins Today” (sans “?”) and that there was little doubt left about her presidential plans were impulsive and premature, and I have changed this post accordingly.
Movie Review: “An American Carol”
Lots of conservatives (me included) got excited back when David Zucker’s An American Carol was announced. As a fierce, openly conservative film from mainstream Hollywood talent, it sparked hopes that it could bring conservative messages to segments of the population the Right doesn’t normally reach and bring about a larger conservative presence in American pop culture. Unfortunately, it didn’t do all that well commercially. I’ve seen it a couple times now, and have some thoughts on what worked, and what went wrong.
To recap for those unfamiliar, An American Carol tells the tale of a sleazy, America-hating director who has been recruited by two bumbling al-Qaeda terrorists to produce a recruitment video, but the spirits of past American heroes (plus, uh, Trace Adkins) intervene to teach him some much-needed lessons about the price of liberty. Will Michael “Malone” come to his senses in time to foil the jihadists’ latest plot?
An American Carol does a few things right. For one, the casting is absolutely superb. Kevin Farley looks just like Michael Moore, and perfectly captures the boorish, self-serving creep (albeit far more likeable than the real thing). Chriss Anglin makes a great John F. Kennedy, both looking like the president and capturing his distinctive voice without descending into parody. Kelsey Grammar’s portrayal of General George S. Patton is confident and cantankerous, and while it won’t dethrone George C. Scott’s legendary performance anytime soon, it doesn’t need to—this is a comedy, not a biopic. Jon Voight delivers an outstanding, albeit criminally brief, performance of President George Washington that’s so somber and dignified that I’d love to see Voight star in a Washington biopic. Robert Davi is strong as the jihadists’ ruthless leader, and his two bumbling underlings provide lots of laughs (“All the really good suicide bombers are gone!”) The supporting cast does fine, Bill O’Reilly has a couple amusing appearances as himself, and there’s Leslie Nielsen. If you don’t love Leslie Nielsen, there’s something wrong with you. The likeable cast keeps the movie going even through some of the weaker jokes.
There are plenty of laughs to be had—this is from the guy behind Airplane! and the Naked Gun movies, after all. Most of the best material revolves around the two Taliban twits, and my favorite part of the movie was a simply brilliant sequence involving zombies (I’ll say no more so as not to spoil it). Funny one-liners abound, and, of course, it’s just not a Zucker movie until bad things happen to children with severe medical problems. On the other hand, the idea of a musical number featuring a pack of hippies-turned-academics certainly has potential, but its execution soon becomes almost painful.
Unfortunately, the film’s effectiveness at conveying a message falls flat. Often the caricatures of left-wing fallacies such as appeasement, academic indoctrination, and anti-Americanism are so clichéd, unsympathetic and over-the-top that they come across as wooden, transparent, and sometimes even juvenile. The dialogue put in liberal mouths is often little more than left-wing bumper-sticker lines strung together, with the worst offenders being an early conversation about war between Malone and his military nephew, and a talk show where Rosie “O’Connell” pushes her crackpot theory that “radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam.”
These caricatures lack the subtlety and natural flair that superior political satirists like Paul Shanklin, the Onion, and (even to some degree) the writers on the Daily Show and Colbert Report have mastered (I think this was the same problem that plagued Fox News’ short-lived Half-Hour News Hour). It’s easy to knock down a straw man, but it’s not effective—I didn’t find Malone’s conversion to patriotism convincing because I didn’t find the film’s arguments persuasive, and I doubt anyone who doesn’t already know the underlying principles and arguments would be persuaded either. And aside from entertaining, wasn’t that the point—to get the other side of the story into mainstream entertainment? Keeping that in mind, conservatives shouldn’t be discouraged by An American Carol’s lack of success. It still remains to be seen how a truly excellent, openly conservative film would fare at the box office, one that better balances silliness and substance.
An American Carol isn’t a bad movie—strong performances and classic Zucker wit make it an enjoyable 83 minutes, and conservatives will get a kick out of how mercilessly it skewers all manner of left-wing idiocy. But sadly, it fails to be significantly more than just that—a right-wing guilty pleasure.
Conservative Standards 