politics+culture+irony

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner after a playdate.

Just about every major news outlet (as well as Fox News) have been gleefully positing that the Democrats are poised for massive losses in Congress after this year’s November midterm elections. All you need to do is watch about 20 minutes of news coverage—on cable or the networks—and you’ll soon conclude the 2010 midterm elections might as well be scrapped, called off. Game over already. The Democrats will lose the House and Senate. It’s a given. Why even vote? Nancy Pelosi might as well hand over her gavel to Rep. John “Man Tan” Boner Boehner.

While the party of the president in power almost always loses seat in midterm elections, the potential “storm brewing” for Democrats took on end-of-the-world, epic proportions. The Democrats, the media cried, weren’t just looking at losing both the House and Senate (the latter a complete impossibility) . . . no, the Democrats were on the road to extinction. Obama himself was declared road-kill. The unhinged even predicted impeachment. Shortly after health care reform was passed, a nutjob named Jeffrey T. Kuhner wrote an article in the Washington Times called “Impeach the President?” (Who is Kuhner? Ironically, a Canadian, who certainly benefited mightily from his country’s government-run health care system. But I digress.)

Although the nattering nabobs of negativity began the Democrats Death March right after Scott Brown’s insignificant Senate victory over a breathtakingly weak Democratic candidate in Massachusetts, it really sallied forth after health care reform was passed. Yes, according to the “liberal” media, expanding health care coverage for people in need and drastically overhauling a broken and corrupt insurance system would prove the Democrats’ nadir.

When referencing the health care bill, smug d-bags called it “ObamaCare,” said on-air as if it were “ObamaCare®.” Tee-hee . . . what was supposed to be health care reform, according to crack journos and deadbeat pundits, was simply a misguided brand: Medicare run by some Muslim guy who may not even be a God-fearing American, for chrissake!

But something funny is happening on the way to November 2010.

What was once looking to just about everyone as a certain Republican sweep of the midterms is now looking more like the Democrats will not only hold on to both houses of Congress, but they (may) actually increase their majority. OMFG! Yes, in the past I’ve been accused by those prone to violence of advocating violence, but what now? Bill “I Hate Myself More Than You Hate Me” O’Reilly might say that I’ve “drunken the Kool-Aid.” It’s actually tasty . . . but let’s look at what’s transpired on fronts political and economic since the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 was signed into law on March 30.

• Obama’s approval rating | Despite what the news media (and Fox News) hammer home day after day, Obama’s approval ratings are at a whopping 54 percent. The loathsome Dick Morris, who for months blathered endlessly about the coming GOP takeover, is now blogging about . . . Mother’s Day. WTF? (He and his wife are threatening to cook a Mother’s Day dinner for one unlucky t-bag d-bag who purchases Dick’s latest book Toe-Sucking Prostitutes: My Life With Hookers.) Bottom line: As Obama’s numbers rise, so too do Congress’.
• GDP | In the first quarter of 2010, the economy grew by 3.2 percent. Sufficient to stem George W. Bush’s recession/depression? No, but the the GDP numbers are the highest in the three years. Sean Hannity, you there? Anyone at Fox News on this story?
• Consumer spending | The gloomy consumer is no longer so. In March spending is up the most in five months.
• Financial-reform legislation | The Republicans were not content simply to sit on their hands during the health care debate. When financial-reform legislation was scheduled to be tackled in Congress, the Republicans again filibustered (well, threatened to anyway). Apparently, according to Republicans, Wall Street is in fine shape and needs no regulation. Excellent. Hey Mitch McConnell: Make sure all your GOP Senate candidates run on that. Americans love big, bloated banks.
• Health care | Say what? Aren’t 130 percent of Americans opposed to health care? Yes according to the humor website Fox News. No according to reality. Not content on losing the debate, the Republicans have actually set their sites on overturning the law . . . just when the bulk of the benefits kick in come fall. The GOP seem to think that voters actually support health insurance companies when they deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Nice one!
• Sarah Palin | Nothing reminds voters more of the extremism, intolerance, and racism of the Republican Party more than Palin, who clearly cares far more about making money than governing. Keep lambasting Obama and the Democrats, Sarah, so the independents remember the GOP is chockablock with angry, do-nothing, white men.
• Gallup | Oops. Breaking news, Gallup proves my argument.

Now, sure, there can be seismic shifts in the electorate come November. But if you read the copious right-wing number crunching of the impending election, you’d think that Sarah Palin is on track to be appointed President after the Republican Conquistadors plunder the country of liberals, gays, Democrats, minorities, and Keith Olbermann.

Yeah, anything can happen. But if the economy improves (which it is) and the unemployment rate drops (which it surely will by November), what do Republican Congressional candidates run on?

Elect us so we can . . . reverse the positive trend the economy is taking! We don’t want job growth. Let’s return back to the days of George W. Bush, um, when banks ran wild and stole tax payer money. That’s right voters: Cast your ballot for the Republican this year so we can all enjoy the Bush recession again.

About the only hope the GOP has of overtaking Congress is a terrorist attack. And one was just foiled in Times Square, surely to the consternation of Sean Hannity and everyone at Fox News.

After seeing Martin Scorsese’s latest film Shutter Island over the weekend, I went back and read some reviews. (My rule of thumb: I don’t read reviews ahead of time for films I plan on seeing.)

As a longtime film writer, who’s covered the Cannes Film Festival since 1992—most recently for Movieline—I wasn’t particularly surprised to see  negative reviews coming from top-self critics. The often reliable A.O. “What Does My Kid Think?” Scott at the New York Times completely trashed the film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a fifties-era federal marshal tasked to investigate a prisoner disappearance at an institution for the criminally insane.

Though his taste is questionable and at times puzzling, Scott is one of my favorite film critics and as a nuts-and-bolts writer, he’s one of the best at the Times. But his review of Shutter Island was peculiar and off base for many reasons. First, he deemed it relevant to use ALL CAPS in his review. He opens by saying:

“Shutter Island” takes place off the coast of Massachusetts in 1954. I’m sorry, that should be OFF THE COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS! IN 1954! since every detail and incident in the movie, however minor, is subjected to frantic, almost demented (and not always unenjoyable) amplification.

Amidst yuk-yuks about the actors and their (relatively believable) Boston accents—”Teddy’s partner (pahtnah), Chuck Aule, played by Mark (Mahk) Ruffalo”—Scott goes on to say the film is chockablock with “narrative misdirection.” Note to Marty: Work on that, will you? Do you know anything about directing? Scott’s final shove of Scorsese off the ledge comes when he says, “[Scorsese] seems to have been unable to locate what it is in this movie he cares about.”

Scott seems to be have some behind-the-scenes loathing for Scorsese’s rather hefty payday for the unabashedly Hollywood movie. That’s where New York magazine critic David Edelstein steps in.

Edelstein’s review was far more vitriolic. He hinted that the only reason Scorsese made the film was, indeed, for a “fat studio paycheck.” He goes on to say the movie was simply . . . too movieish.

But even when the detective-story foundation begins to crumble and the gumshoe protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio) becomes racked with visions of concentration camps and bloody children and babbles about Communist subversives and Nazi experiments, Shutter Island is still suffocatingly movieish.

When I read Scott’s and Edelstein’s reviews, I was reminded of another big-budget Hollywood studio film made by another legendary film director. In 1999, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut was released, posthumously, and how the top critics howled. They couldn’t heap contempt upon Kubrick fast enough. Dinosaur Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer said:

What surprised me the most . . . was the sketchy and episodic structure of the narrative, the feeble attempts at melodramatic tension and suspense, and the clumsily corny and anticlimactic ending with its halfhearted four-letter-word mantra.

Others lesser-knowns said things like: Those scenes in New York City? What? That doesn’t look like the New York City I know. J. Hoberman of the Village Voice wrote:

At worst, Eyes Wide Shut is ponderously (up)dated—as though Kubrick had finally gotten around to responding to Michelangelo Antonioni’s druggy Blow-Up—if not weirdly anachronistic. (It’s difficult to make a movie about a city you last set foot in 35 years ago.)

Note the last dig: Criticizing Kubrick for not making New York look like New York. Does Hoberman really think Kubrick didn’t remember what New York City was like? So he simply faked the exterior shots? Yes, the city shots in Eyes Wide Shut do look dreamy and ethereal (the film is based on the Arthur Schnitzler novella Dream Story) but are critics in general—and Hoberman in particular—that jaded as to not give Kubrick (and Scorsese) the benefit of the doubt?

In reviews of both Shutter and Eyes critics also complained that the plots were near incomprehensible; an odd observation considering both were adapted from written works. And both directors were tsk-tsked for seemingly becoming sellouts, Hollywood whores.

In the end, I think many critics who initially hated Eyes Wide Shut probably now see the genius behind it. At the time of its release, it was the Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman Dog-and-Pony Show. The film’s importance and resonance got lost behind the nonsensical panoply of celebrity. If Kubrick deserves any fault it’s for casting a larger-than-life celeb couple who eventually eclipsed the film itself.

With Shutter Island as well I see the same critics who are blasting it today as the ones tomorrow who’ll rethink their initial scorn and see the film for what it is: An unconventional, intricate, spellbinding psychological thriller that perhaps overreaches, but it at least takes the suspense genre to new heights.

By now most Americans would agree the ascendancy of Barack Obama to President was due in large part to his promise of obliterating the petty Washington-politics-as-usual mentality when it comes to governing.

In 2000 when running for president, George W. Bush trotted out a nifty campaign slogan: “compassionate conservatism.” He didn’t coin the term; it was first used in a speech given in 1979 by right-wing presidential adviser Doug Wead. But Bush owned it in the 2000 election in an effort to pander to moderate voters. Compassionate conservatism, he argued, would be his guiding principle should he win the presidency. (He probably didn’t realize when he used that term he was implying conservatism at its core is inherently uncompassionate. After all, if conservatism was truly compassionate he wouldn’t have needed a qualifier.) He also boasted that when he was governor of Texas he worked across party lines, though the state’s elected Democrats are often considerably more conservative than Northeastern Republicans.

For myriad reasons, the American people bought Bush’s blatant lies; even the most ardent Bush supporters now readily admit that he neither practiced compassionate conservatism nor did he ever have any intent of working “across party lines.” His presidential administration was perhaps the most partisan and blatantly conservative of any in American history.

So what does this have to do with President Obama?

Most Americans want at least some sort of harmony among government entities (especially within the intelligence communities). The only way America moves—forward or backward—is when legislation and agendas are advanced. Now historically speaking, the advancement of legislation and agendas can have detrimental effects on society (see particularly Ronald Reagan’s fuck-the-poor decade and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with on America). But nonetheless agendas were advanced, and many politicians followed the cliché: “Let the chips fall where they may.” Pass legislation that you believe in and fuck the voters come November. For all of Gingrich’s repulsiveness, he pushed through his agenda—the people’s will be damned. And yeah, the people didn’t forget; they loathed him, and he was eventually driven out of office.

President Obama, on the other hand, has spent an entire year desperately attempting to win over the hearts and minds of the Republican establishment. While Obama could have rammed his will down the throats of the American people by going overboard in issuing executive orders, he only passed 39 executive orders in his first year in office. By contrast George W. Bush passed 54 executive orders.

Obama’s entire first year in office can be summed up this way: Pandering, placating, and pussy-footing around the Republican Party. He offered his hand to the Republicans, and they gave him a firm backhand. Look at the health care reform bill. For God’s sake, it’s a giveaway to Republicans: It has no public option, it allows for interstate insurance shopping, and if passed will add millions of customers to the oligarchical insurance companies. How much more Republican-friendly could the bill be? If you ask the Republicans they’d say, “The only good health care reform bill is a dead health care reform bill.” (Poor choice of words deliberate.)

Clearly, Obama has a distaste for political hardball. By his actions, he doesn’t want to become simply a liberal version of George W. Bush, ramming liberal policies down the throats of Congress—much to my chagrin. He needs to rethink that.

Here’s what I’d say to Obama, and I believe many of his advisers are saying these sorts of things as well:

You’ve given it your best shot, you’ve tried numerous times to talk with the Republicans, to negotiate, to meet them halfway on every single matter before the American people. But they hate you for many reasons. It’s time you break kneecaps. It’s time to destroy the Republican Party. They don’t deserve a seat at the table when all they want to do is score political points by being the Party of No.

It’s looking like Obama may be getting the message. Just yesterday he threatened to bypass Republican foot-dragging on his stalled nominations by using the recess-appointment process—a procedure Bush 43 used on numerous occasions (with nefarious results—remember John Bolton).

As expected, after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was shown weeping on the Senate floor he said the potential recess appointments would undermine the President’s efforts to reach out to Republicans. Seriously!? According to McConnell “reaching out to Republicans” means giving them everything they ask for, all the time.

Elections have consequences. After Bush’s narrow reelection in 2004, he had the temerity to address the press and say, “I earned political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” Why can’t Barack Obama, whose victory was far more impressive and more decisive, say the same thing?

By reading news accounts on Massachusetts voters electing Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, it appears as if the world has just experienced a tectonic shift. In fact, theday.com labeled the victory as such.

But even mainstream news outlets couldn’t resist the Level 11 News Alert. For them, Brown’s victory was a seminal news-making event: equal to the ending of World War II and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Newspaper headlines were certainly grave: “GOP Victory Upends Senate,” screamed the Wall Street Journal. In the New York Post, Charles Hurt (we get it) wrote a column, “Bam, wake up & smell the disaster,” (really classy headline, Charles, considering what’s going on in Haiti).

CNN, MSNBC, and Fox (of course) were playing along as well. The morning shows treated the election as perhaps the biggest news story since… well… since Barack Obama won the presidency. No, sorry. For them, it was BIGGER.

Time for a rundown of myth versus reality.

Myth: The election of Scott Brown proves the power of the Tea Bag Movement. An editorial in the Christian Science Monitor blared “Scott Brown: the tea party’s first electoral victory.”
Reality: The tea baggers, who boast their movement is directionless and rudderless, had absolutely no effect in the Massachusetts Senate race. In fact, if anything, their antics likely turned off Republican voters and could have given Martha Coakley a few more votes than expected.

Myth: The Democratic Party has lost its way with voters.
Reality: Let’s see, by last count there are 57 Democratic Senators, one Reliable Independent (Bernie Sanders), one Total Asshole (Joe Lieberman), and now, with the election of Brown, 41 Republicans. Come November more Republicans, six, are stepping down or retiring than Democrats. No matter how hard Republicans try to spin it, they have zero chance of winning back the House or Senate (even loose cannon Michael Steel, RNC chairman, admits as much). The Democratic Party, while clearly in need of a shakeup, is still firmly in control of the legislative agenda.

Myth: Due to Brown’s victory, it’ll be almost impossible for Democrats to pass legislation in the Senate.
Reality: See “Total Asshole” above. Joe “I’m as Needy as Kim Jong-il” Lieberman has been veering hard right for the last few years, and as we all know campaigned vigorously against Obama. To assume Lieberman will vote lock step with Democrats is nonsense. He openly loathes the Democratic Party, and flirts with becoming a Republican. Thus, Brown’s victory doesn’t move the needle. The Democrats barely got 60 votes on the health care bill; even had the Democratic candidate won last night in Massachusetts, reaching 60 votes with Connecticut’s Senator Numnuts was pretty much impossible.

Myth: The stock market would rise on the election of Scott Brown. Investors would be cheering that the health care bill is dead!
Fact: The Dow, S&P, and the NASDAQ all dropped over 1 percent the day after Brown’s victory, their worst one-day decline in month. And the financial markets continue to tank.

Myth: Brown’s victory is proof that Democratic Party domination in Massachusetts is over.
Reality: Scott Brown is a conservative. He’s opposed to health care reform; he’s positively James Inhofe-like in his dismissal of man-made global warming. Let’s not forget that Brown is up for reelection in 2012. And assuming that Obama turns the economy around (which is likely), Brown is going to have an awfully hard time running as a Mitch McConnell conservative in a liberal state. Either Brown does a one-eighty and awakens his inner liberal or he loses.

Also, let’s not give Martha Coakley a pass. She was a dreadful candidate: Almost a Democratic, female version of John McCain, oozing boredom and status quo. She assumed the seat would be handed to her with little or no campaigning needed. In a “blue” state, shouldn’t it have been possible to come up with a dynamic Democratic candidate? Brown’s victory is due mostly in part to Coakley’s incompetence (see the Fells Acres Day Care Center case that she badly handled as a prosecutor).

Myth: The Republican Party is back (baby)!
Reality: Again, the Republicans nominated a candidate whose platform was “no, no, no.” Brown has no ideas and no serious plans for fixing the economy—other than tax cuts for the rich. (And we all remember how well that worked under George W. Bush.) His victory only further proves the Republican Party is shiftless and bereft of ideas.

Myth: The election is a referendum on President Obama and proves he’s unpopular.
Reality: Rasmussen has Obama’s favorable rate in Massachusetts at 57 percent. Nationally, Obama’s favorables hover north of 50 percent—amazing considering the flaming economic turd pie handed him by George W. Bush.

Are voters angry? Yes, that’s not in dispute. To whom should their anger be directed? Paul Krugman has it right when he argues the Obama administration has been far too timid in explaining how we got in this economic mess in the first place. Blame lays squarely at the feet of George W. Bush; Obama is simply trying to dig us out.

Apparently, the vast electorate demands instant action from Obama: By now, they argue, the economy should be humming along and the eight years of economic misery should be but a memory. People who think that shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Grow up, douchebags voters.

In 1980 when the country was facing a punishing economic climate, Ronald Reagan verbally pummeled Jimmy Carter. And guess what? The American people bought it. Why can’t Obama do them same and insulate himself and his administration from the brunt of the criticism? The Blame Game is one to be played, not shunned.

Yawn… So Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. Come November, when the Democrats retain control of Congress, I don’t suspect many people will give a hoot.