Come On, You Guys Haven’t Given This War A Chance!

Hugh “Ol’ Gunny” Hewitt standing watch at Firebase Borders, where the lead is hot, but the frappes are cold.
When General Petraeus Reports (Johnny Won’t Be Marching Home Again)

President Bush made an excellent speech this week

And my grandfather, according to his nurse, made an excellent doodie. I suspect these two events will wind up having an equal effect on the war in Iraq.

…laying out the case that al Qaeda in Iraq is a subsidiary of al Qaeda in Waziristan…

Although for tax purposes they’re incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

His central premise –a retreat in Iraq means a huge win for al Qaeda everywhere it organizes– was carefully constructed and reasoned and simply cannot be argued by the war’s critics, only ignored.

Well, our withdrawl wouldn’t exactly provide a big bump in business for al Qaeda in Iraq, now would it? And if some of those troops were diverted to Afghanistan, I don’t imagine that would really boost morale at the home office. Oops, sorry — I forgot that the president simply cannot be argued with, only ignored. The problem is, he will not be ignored! So either I engage his argument and he fakes a suicide attempt, or I ignore his speech, and get boiled lagomorph for dinner.

There is a certain panic in the anti-war leadership as they see the same data that pro-surge commentators do, and understand that the unmistakable momentum on the side of the coalition threatens to bolster support for victory in Iraq. Victory in Iraq –the creation of a stable, functioning representative government protected by a strong Iraqi military capable of and committed to the suppression of terrorism and sectarian violence– would be a vindication of the Bush Doctrine

Whereas the situation we have currently achieved in Iraq is a vindication of Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, that crappy Star Trek episode with Frank Gorshin as an alien with the complexion of a spectator pump who spends 50,000 years chasing another harlequin-faced dude around the galaxy because he stole Frank’s idea for the mock turtleneck. So Frank hijacks the Enterprise, but when he and the other Othello game piece get back home they find that all the Star Belly Sneetches and all the Plain Belly Sneetches have exterminated each other, leaving the two color-coordinated antagonists to chase each other through a lifeless, smoldering, irradiated landscape for all eternity. However, if George W. Bush was the captain, I have a feeling Hugh would find a way to spin this as a victory for Federation diplomacy.

…and although it would also be in the very best interests of the country as a whole, the left sees a political disaster in such an outcome, and has hence redoubled its efforts to tarnish not just the president who ordered the war, but also the generals who lead it, and the soldiers who fight it. In the service of this last objective, The New Republic was pleased to bring its readers the now infamous “Baghdad Diarist,” but that is just one of the more visible libels on the troops dressed up as “reporting” intended to be understood as a generally applicable view of the conduct of America’s military.

Don’t you hate these guys who think, just because they’re “on the ground” and “writing” about things they’ve “witnessed,” that they’re “reporting?” That’s not reporting, that’s libelling. Reporting doesn’t consist of some jerk wandering around a war-torn country, interviewing people, taking photos, and describing events. The real reporting takes place back in the states, when bloggers prove the reporter in Iraq doesn’t exist.

Of course the victory hasn’t been won, and of course the argument about the war isn’t going to vanish even if General Petraeus gives an optimistic report in mid-September. But that report will matter a great deal, and I hope the Administration takes steps to assure that the American people get to hear it without the filter of the MSM or a Democratically-controlled Senate or House panel doing its best to muffle the good news and amplify the bad news.

I hope that General Petraeus appears before a respectful audience interested in his report and gives his remarks prefaced by an appeal to the MSM to at least play, uninterrupted, the first five minutes of his talk.

Or better yet, just let him deliver it from the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia. That usually fires up the proles.

If he then provided an executive summary of what he thinks is the situation in Iraq, there is an excellent chance that the American people will be allowed to hear the key facts from the key military leader.

I hear Pinochet’s available.

I hope after that summary he proceeds to deliver a detailed speech which the responsible networks will carry live (and radio hosts will replay) and that he then takes an hour of questions, before appearing before any Senate or House panel (which he will of course make himself available for.) Even though the day is long, I hope he ends it with Brit Hume…

That seems a bit harsh. Couldn’t they just waterboard him instead?

…followed by Charlie Rose, and then appears on Meet The Press and Wolf Blitzer’s program the following Sunday, thus making himself available to the four best television interviewers working today. On the Monday following the Sunday shows, I hope he appears on the programs of Bill Bennett, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved…

Here’s a tip: With that many clowns, you’re going to want to Armor-All the vinyl seats first, that way they can all pour out of the tiny car much more smoothly.

In the course of these talks, speeches, hearings and interviews, I hope General Petraeus does two key things.

That’s Gaius Julius Petraeus to you, pal.

First, I hope he communicates a realistic timetable for success in Iraq.

Using the Gregorian Calendar is just depressing people. He needs to start framing the debate in geologic time.

While he may commit to making quarterly reports, support for the war has to be informed by realism as to how long it will take to bring about victory.

Until an asteroid hits Iraq and causes terrorists to undergo a global extinction event?

Bluntly giving his best assessment of a timetable to victory will serve notice on the enemy that the military is prepared to go the distance

Even if the weak-kneed civilian leadership gives up on the war, the military will not be moved. Any future Democratic Administration would have to scurry around Iraq, popping each individual soldier out of his foxhole with a prybar.

…and it will also give the public a measuring stick not just for our effort their but for Congressional support for it as well. General Petraeus has been attacked by the anti-war fringe

If your fringed shawl is 30% shawl and 70% fringe, chances are it’s not really a fringed shawl, but a regular shawl that’s just really badly unraveling.

I also hope General Petraeus tells us how many foreign jihadists have been killed in Iraq in the months since the surge began.

Because as Hugh and the other hawks never tire of pointing out, there is no similarity between Iraq and Vietnam. And what better way to demonstrate that than by measuring the progress of the war with body counts?

I know the policy against giving body counts, and debated it on air with Tony Snow recently, but I hope the Pentagon will see that there is a huge difference between tallies of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese killed in the ’60s and the ’70s, and the number of international terrorists dispatched in Iraq in 2007.

In one case, the corpses were sort of yellowish, and in the other, they’re kind of brown.

The president made an excellent case in Charleston that we cannot allow al Qaeda to establish a base of operations in Iraq…

Um, Hugh? I hate to be the one to tell you this, but uh…

But that threat is still not real to many Americans. Why they refuse to believe the obvious is a problem

Hugh’s job used to be easy, but all these educated immigrants from India and Asia pouring into the U.S. have increased the average IQ, and decreased the National Gullibility Index. Damn you ICE!

…but the one measurement they may understand are the numbers of foreigners who travel to Iraq to make jihad against us. We can’t know that exact number, but we can establish a minimum of the number of them killed by our military before they ever had the chance to take jihad anywhere else.

Maybe, finally, the American people will wake up when they see the large numbers of dead jihadist toddlers, militant teddy bears, and terrorist binkies caught by our new body count system.

Every dead terrorist in Iraq represents a significant victory for American security (and every foreign jihadist there is there against the wishes of the lawful government of Iraq and must be considered a terrorist.)

Except the Shiite ones. And to be fair, the Sunni foreign jihadists are there with the express good wishes of the lawful government of Saudi Arabia. But I’m sure there’s some radical Baha’i terrorists we can all hate on together.

The numbers of these terrorists in the country and the number of them killed matter a great deal, as they communicate to the American public a sense of the scale of the threat we face in Iraq. Had we left when the Democrats wanted us to leave last year or early this year, those terrorists killed since the surge began would not only be alive…

But so would several hundred American soldiers.  And several thousand Iraqi civilians.  And where would we put them all?  We’d have to send the kids down to the Piggly Wiggly for more ice, and Bob would have to put a leaf in the table.

…they would have greater training, greater ambitions, greater momentum, and a sense of mission that could carry many of them to the West. If the United States doesn’t fight them in Iraq, we will indeed be fighting them in the county or in the countries of our allies.

Well, we shouldn’t have offered to host Mesopotamian Civil War XII: Caliphate Smackdown!  Yeah, it brings in the tourist dollar, but it’s going to screw up traffic in the downtown area for weeks.

General Petraeus and the officers and troops he commands have been winning huge victories for the American people as well as for Iraqis since January

Even though we’re told that the surge only started two weeks ago. Well, I’m sure the General has won many famous moral victories. And probably several huge pyrrhic ones too.

and the significance of those victories deserves to be spelled out for the public and broadcast by the MSM. If General Petraeus asks for five minutes and doesn’t get it from the networks, the outrage will be real and sustained.

Well.  It’ll be sustained anyway.

If he does get those five minutes I hope he assembles the facts that Americans need to hear and which will confirm for them not just the excellence of their military and the skill and courage with which they fight, but also the significance of their mission and the necessity of the awful sacrifices made by so many men and women. 

I recommend he open with a joke.

Posted by scott on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 2:20 pm.

22 Responses to “Come On, You Guys Haven’t Given This War A Chance!”

Cold Duck

The LA Times has mercifully discontinued Mallard Fillmore, on the theory that anyone trolling the comics pages for hilarious hijinks and knee-slapping shenanigans are more likely to find them in the panels of Rex Morgan, M.D.  Nevertheless, a commenter in this Sadly, No! thread pointed me to today’s edition of Bruce Tinsley’s long-running series: How Many Ways Can A Duck Suck?…

Well, THAT ought’a persuade Al Gore to STFU.  Unless you happen to recall this post, in which we discussed Mr. Tinsley’s habit of getting arrested for driving under the influence.  Granted, his caricatures are ugly, but you have to admit, the man draws what he knows:

 As fellow Hoosier Doghouse Riley pointed out at the time, Mr. Tinsley wasn’t some innocent Joe who had a couple of beers with fellow conservative waterfowl fanciers, then fell afoul of an overzealous traffiic cop.  He was a repeat, and, as it turns out, extremely enthusiastic offender:

Guy blows a .14 on a second arrest in four months and he’s free on $750 bail, plus it somehow takes a week for the news to get out. He’s got an angel somewhere. And he could now be looking at a Class D felony, and definitely some jail time. Should be interesting to watch. Plus the opportunity to say, “Mallard Fillmore, by convicted felon Bruce Tinsley” would almost make reading the thing worth it.

So while I’m happy that Mr. Tinsley is reducing his carbon footprint, I think it has less to do with ecological altruism, and more to do with the court dropping his drivers license into a document shredder.  And Bruce?  The “legislation forcing everyone to do what you do” is called Indiana Code 9-30-5.  You might want to pay special attention to the section on license suspension, and mandatory jail time after second offense.

But by all means, get on your high horse about people who voluntarily ride a bike.  I’m pretty sure they can’t cite you for cantering down the equestrian trail while slightly drunker than Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou.

Posted by scott on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 2:20 am.

34 Responses to “Cold Duck”

How To Pitch Movies…If You’re A Right Wing Hack

Recently, Kathryn Jean Lopez escaped from the Bedlam-like confines of The Corner and wandered into Townhall, where she was immediately mistaken for the Kommissar of Kultur, leading to a series of rib-tickling monkeyshines straight out of the 1949 Danny Kaye vehicle, The Inspector General.

For most of its history, Hollywood has been a liberal enterprise

Yep.  For more information, see Neil Gabler’s groundbreaking book, Joseph Breen, Secret Hippie.

…with occasional exceptions like “The Passion of the Christ.”

Which wasn’t actually made by Hollywood, thus proving that the exception proves the rule to the, uh…exception.

And it’s also been too darn predictable. Hollywood needs to make more movies that don’t use its typical formula. One outside-the-box example is the raunchy summer comedy “Knocked Up” – its adolescent humor is infused with a conservative message.

I don’t approve of raunchy comedies, even in warm weather, but filmmaker Judd Apatow deserves kudos for his courageous decision to reject the weary old Hollywood formula in favor of the bold, risky, untried tack of “Boy meets Girl.  Boy loses Girl.  Boy gets Girl in the end.”  For viewers who sit through Knocked Up, expecting a romantic comedy, the experience is no doubt similar to the shock felt by the audiences who saw the first screening of Un chien andalou, or Nijinsky’s masturbating ruminant in the 1912 premiere of L’Apres-midi d’um faune.

If I were issuing grants to filmmakers for non-formulaic productions, there would be two genres I’d look to fund. First, we could really use inspiring war stories…

To thine own porn be true.

…taking place not just on the battlefield, but also on the airwaves or anywhere a major conflict impacts our way of life.

Exactly!  It’d be like Audie Murphy’s autobiography, To Hell and Back, or Guadalcanal Diary, or The Thin Red Line, except it would be about Hugh Hewitt (affectionately known to his interns as “Gunny”) fighting the Battle of Fallujah from his besieged studio in the Empire State Building.  Can’t you just see Hugh, grimy, unshaven, crazed with grief and rage as he verbally mows down enemy strawmen while bellowing to his troops, “C’mon you candy-asses, get back in the war!  And get me a no-foam double vanilla latte and a raspberry danish!”  Call it, To Zabars and Back, or, The Sands of St. Croix.

There have been some attempts, which I applaud, but we need more. We’re at war. Pop culture should reflect that.

Yeah.  Except pop culture is, sort of by definition, popular culture.  When the country is united behind a war, films depicting it will attract audiences.  When a war is unpopular, however, you’re more likely to see it celebrated in noticably unpopular culture — like the National Review, or Townhall.

Secondly, I’d support the “Feminism Does Not Speak for Me” project — as feminism does not speak for me, and I’m not the only American woman who would say that.

While I, on the other hand, support the “I Support Tautology Because I Support Tautology” project because I support the Tautology project.  And I’m not the only American who would say that.  Especially if they’d recently sustained a head wound.
And anyway, unlike “Boy Meets Girl,” the old “Feminism does not speak for me” formula is much more commercially viable, because, let’s face it, women flock to those movies.  Especially during seasonably warm temperatures, when they just want to turn off the brain, kick off their shoes, and watch a didactic flick dramatizing the heroic efforts of reactionary political action committees to roll back gains in reproductive rights and gender equality.

For you major-motion-picture types, here are some ideas. Enjoy them. And have no worries, I won’t ask for royalties.

Ohhh, to have the Diet Sprite and Junior Mint concession for these blockbusters.

SOLDIERS’ ANGEL. With a son deployed in Iraq and a daughter who’s helped the rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, D.C. mom and Hill vet Barbara Ledeen spends her off hours talking to and advocating for young men, some of whom lost limbs to enemy IEDs. In a culture where sacrifice is slim and protest often casual (including the antiwar protests she encounters outside medical centers where our wounded are being cared for), Ledeen’s encounters are heartbreaking, startling and inspiring.

This is a very strong pitch, but I think K-Lo needs to stress the project’s potential as a tentpole summer comedy.  For instance, there’s the whole Tracy and Hepburn-like back and forth as Barbara, the “Soldier’s Angel,” spends her off-hours advocating for service personnel maimed in Iraq, while her husband Michael spends his time at the office advocating for the invasion of Iran (“and faster, please!”).  It’s like Adam’s Rib, except with more amputees.  Then there’s our B story, where daughter Simone takes a job with the Coalition Provisional Authority and promptly loses 9 billion dollars!  From there it’s a non-stop gigglefest as Simone goes through one desperate, hare-brained scheme after another to keep her parents from finding out (I see it as a cross between the 1967 Jim Hutton laugher Who’s Minding The Mint? and the later episodes of Here’s Lucy.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE! I’ve stolen the title from radio-talk show host Laura Ingraham’s upcoming book (Regnery), so she might want royalties. A group of media conservatives helps kill a bad bill against all odds. With the power of the White House pushing an amnesty-for-illegal-immigrants bill, a dramatic debate ensues, with name-calling, broken friendships and eventually some redemption. The White House loses big, but it’s a victory for law-abiding Americans who let themselves be heard via phone and e-mail, against the backdrop of heart-wrenching stories and the need for law and order.

The drama just drips from every word of this synopsis, creating an ever-widening pool that obstructs foot traffic and eventually draws a rebuke from OSHA.  At last, Hollywood tells the stories of Real American Bigots the way they were meant to be told:  Up on the big screen!  30 feet tall!  Via phone and email.

CHENEY.  He was White House chief of staff. He was secretary of defense. They thought his career was over. And then he became one of the most hated and feared politicians in the land, one heartbeat away from the presidency. But that was only the beginning. After months of the politicos’ eyeing the field, Dick Cheney surprised them all by storming in late in the race and taking the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

But then, at the last second, Aragorn shows up with Isildur’s sword and an army of the Sleepless Dead, and it looks like the tide is turning.  Only Cheney slays Theoden, and then he tells Eowyn, “No man can kill me!” and then she stabs him right in the face and pulls off her helmet, and her hair still looks great, and she says, “I am no man!”  And then everybody goes to Mordor, and Gollum falls in the lava with the One Ring, and then the black tower with the big flaming eye that kinda looks like a vagina falls over in slow motion, and the eye is glancing back and forth like it’s going, “WTF, dude?”  And then some eagles pick up the Hobbits and everybody goes to Gondor to party, and Aragorn takes the Republican nomination for King.

You get the idea. There are a lot of stories out there. No need for us to be seeing the same movie. Or worse than that: an Al Gore production.

Yes, let’s not wallow in that fey, Oscar-winning shit.  Now, some people may ask (like Roy.  Repeatedly.) why the purveyors of wingnut welfare don’t pour some of the same resources they’ve used to build up phony think tanks, astroturf advocacy groups, magazines, websites, and Fox News into producing their own films.  Well, I think there are two reasons.
First, unlike the cost of keeping Jonah in Yoo Hoos and Little Debbie’s Pecan Spinwheels, making a movie is actually expensive, requiring anywhere from 10 to 60 million dollars for a respectable product, let alone the additional millions for prints and advertising.  And while the men and women who fund the conservo-calliope are happy to tell Hollywood which mouth to put their money in, when it comes to their own pockets, they don’t seem terribly anxious to wager on whether audiences will flock to see the uplifting prison drama, Scooter Libby: The Lambshank Redemption.
Secondly, these same financiers spent 30 years building the world’s loudest megaphone, and since the dawn of the Clinton Administration they have been shouting through it unceasingly until now the major news media spend most of their time quivering in a corner like a whipped hound.  They expected a return on investment, and they got it.  And they see no reason why, if they turn that same megaphone on Hollywood, they can’t bellow the movie industry into obedience as well.  That way, Hollywood will start devoting most of its resources to turning out right wing propaganda disguised as “entertainment,” while the news media promotes right wing talking points — no matter how transparently untrue – in the interest of “balance.”
So, anticipating the day when Bill O’Reilly’s hectoring drives Sumner Redstone into an overdue grave, and the Liberty Film Festival becomes the new Cannes,  feel free to pitch your ideas for conservative movies in the comments.  And K-Lo says it’s okay to steal the titles right wing books, even if they haven’t yet been published or even remaindered and mulched yet.
h/t to reader Patrick

Posted by scott on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 6:19 pm.

53 Responses to “How To Pitch Movies…If You’re A Right Wing Hack”

Friday Beast Blogging — Grokkin’ On Sunshine Edition

Riley can’t believe — simply cannot believe – that Moondoggie is lying in her sun patch.  Nevertheless, she remains confident that if she just STARES at him long enough without blinking…

…she can wish him into the cornfield.
Later, however, amends are made through an eagerly offered, and grudgingly accepted tongue bath.  Fellas, take note.

“Oh all right, if you must, I suppose I can put up with it…”

Posted by scott on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 2:01 pm.

16 Responses to “Friday Beast Blogging — Grokkin’ On Sunshine Edition”

You May Kiss The Homophobe

Longtime Wo’C companion Bill S. was crazy enough to read World Net Daily’s take on I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and kind enough to send us his considered, and considerably snarky, thoughts. Take it away, Bill!
The recent Adam Sandler-Kevin James comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry opened last weekend, finishing #1 at the box office. I haven’t seen it, but judging from the trailer, it appeares to be an innocuous, if stupid movie that combines two very old plot devices: the Marriage of Convenience (which I can trace as far back as 1936′s Libeled Lady, but it might be older) and the Straight Guy Pretending To Be Gay (which goes at least as far back as 1959′s Pillow Talk. The irony is not lost on me). It doesn’t look teribly promising, but I have a friend who’s a Sandler fan so I might end up seeing it (I survived Wild Hogs, so don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll survive this). There’s a good reason to go see it-according to Dr. Ted Beahr of WorldNutDaily, it’s (clutch your pearls, folks) “1 of the most anti-Christian films of the year”
“I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Jessica Biel in one of the most blatant politically correct, anti-Christian movies of the year. Well, considering the negative stereotyping of Asian Americans, I don’t know how blatantly P.C. it is. Promoting itself as a comedy about two straight fireman who get married in order to receive better pension benefits, the movie is nothing more than anti-Christian, pro-homosexual propaganda that attacks the traditional, Judeo-Christian moral values of American Culture. Which I’m guessing include denying gay couples pension benefits. Chuck (Adam Sandler) and Larry (Kevin James) are two New York firemen who have been friends forever. When Larry saves Chuck’s life, Chuck says he is indebted to Larry and will do anything for him. Wow, what an affront to traditionial values! Larry, a widower, has two children of which he is the sole provider. Because of a flaw in the system, if something were to happen to Larry, his children would not receive any of his pension benefits. Only Larry’s “spouse” may receive the benfits. Can somebody please tell me why wingnuts are so free with the scare quotes? So, after seeing a newspaper article about same-sex marriages and pension benefits, Laary asks Chuck, who has a well-known reputation as a ladies man, to marry him. Their arrangement is nothing more than a ruse at first-that is, of course, until the fraud department decides to look into their domestic partnership. And then it stops being a ruse and they fall in love, like the couple in Green Card. Oh, wait… Chuck and Larry rush off to Canada to get married so that their partnership looks legitamite, and Chuck moves in with Larry and his kids. Soon,the two hire themselves a lawyer, Alex McDonough (Jessica Biel)
From the looks of her, she graduated from the David E. Kelly Sexy Attorney school. This, of course, proves to be the biggest test of their “marriage” because Chuck is attracted to Alex. As reports of their “marriage” surface, Chuck and Larry find themselves at the center of a whirlwind of public opinion. Who’s the “top” and who’s the “bottom”? After seeing Bulletproof, I think I can guess. On one hand, they are the objects of sexual ridicule from their fellow firemen. Representing tradition American morality. On the other hand, they are the heroes of the homosexual “community”. Representing what causes Ted’s boxers to bunch into a gigatic wad. And again with the superfluous scare quotes. There are moments in the first half of the movie that provide some laugh-out-loud physical comedy and some funny situations. Now I HAVE to see this movie-just to find out what Dr. Teddy thinks is “laugh-out-loud funny”. With that said, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” is not a comedy. It’s a bleak meditation of the soul, reminiscent of Bergman. Sandahl Bergman. There are several sequences throughout the movie when no one in the audience was laughing for several minutes at a time. The movie quickly moves away from anything resembling entertainment and turns into a boring, perverted, anti-Christian political platform for homosexual activist. Maybe they’d be laughing harder if they were seated close enough to Baehr to watch his foaming-at-the-mouth reaction to the goings-on. The content of this movie is abhorrent. That’s a strong statement coming from a writer for WorldNetDaily. Apart from the homosexual subject matter, the other strong sexual content is out of control. Keep in mind, this guy considers a mere REFERENCE to homosexuals to be “strong sexual content”. Sandler’s character, Chuck, is a womanizing sexual deviant. From implied group sex with five women who appear from his room… I wonder if Adam Sandler had a hand in writing the screenplay? …to receiving mail that includes pornography magazines as well as sexual toys, Chuck is clearly a pervert. Because any straight guy who sleeps with women and likes looking at sexy pictures of them is obviously perverted. Also, in one scene, Larry tries to get effeminate young son to become interested in the nude photos in Chuck’s porn magazines, and the son runs away. Which means the kid is clearly NOT a pervert. Good! Oh, wait, that implies he’s gay. The only Non-perverts are heterosexual men who have zero interest in looking at women. The excessive homosexual content is just more is just more psychological conditioning from the neo-Marxist, anti-Christian politically correct philosophers of our day… UM…”neo-Marxist”? I’m sorry. I just…WHAT. THE. FUCK. DOES. THAT. MEAN? (I wish I had a more clever response to that but…seriously, WTF?) Some of these opinion leaders even support lenient prison sentences for pedophiles who abuse children Wow, that’s one shocking indictment he’s pulled out of his ass. (unless, of course, the pedophile happens to be a Christian leader or white male clergyman) Who, I take it, Baehr thinks should be the ones to get leniency. Who exactly are these “opinion leaders” who say this? Do they hang out with those people Mike Adams writes about? If he can find one real “opinion leader”(whatever that is) who made that statement, I’ll watch Billy Madison 10 times in a rown. If he can find two or more, I’ll thow in 10 viewings of The Waterboy. From multiple manly New York firemen who “come out of the closet”… An unexpected twist in a movie whose plot centers around the premise that there are gay firemen. …to a young boy who is incredibly effeminate and would rather tap dance and be in musicals than play baseball… Sounds like the nephew in Ugly Betty. I love that show! …to making Christians look like stereotypical bigots who use hate speech… An image Ted Baehr’s certainly doing his best to dispel in this review. “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” is aimed not at entertainment, but rather at the philosophical destruction of every virtue and the promotion of every vice. Tap-dancing children are destroying America! John Adams, the second president of the United States… Has as much to do with a silly Adam Sandler comedy as John Wayne had to do with Brokeback Mountain. As long as we’re polling dead people for their opinion of current movies, can we maybe ask Gene Siskel or Joel Siegal? In my latest book, “The Culture-Wise Family”… Available where fine books are sold. Buy one of those instead. Of course, the answer to the humanist worldview and pagan immorality of movies like this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.The Gospel of Jesus Christ preaches the kind of love that does not delight in evils like sexual promiscuity, adultry, greed, envy and murder. The kind of love that equates homosexuality with murder. That’s quite a selling point. MOVIEGUIDE is dedicated to redeeming values of Hollywood by informing parents about today’s movies and entertainment by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. Which explains why I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry opened at #1.

Posted by scott on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 9:43 pm.

54 Responses to “You May Kiss The Homophobe”

The Hollywood Report With MaryC

 
Dateline: Fairfax Avenue! Club: Largo! Why: Patton Oswalt and Friends! Who: John Hodgman!
How: First of all, unlike my close encounter with “Daily Show Funny Woman”, Samantha Bee, we didn’t actually meet “Daily Show Funny Guest John Hodgman”; we just happened to be standing behind him in line to get into the “Patton Oswalt and Friends” show last night. Just so you know.
Anyway, he looks exactly like he does on TV, although I don’t know if he sounds the same. As an added treat, who do you think walked into Largo after we were all seated and waiting for our various drinks and things to arrive, and sat at John Hodgman’s table? Justin Long! Yes, that’s right! It was PC and Mac, out together for a night of comedy and really long waits for dinner and drinks.
So. There you have it. If you come to Hollywood and want to see stars, don’t get a map, get yourself down to Largo on Fairfax Ave. on Mondays for Comedy Night!
And if you can’t go to Largo for possible John Hodgman spottings, you can always read his fabulously funny, Areas of My Expertise, or you can go to John Hodgman’s blog: good evening. While there, be sure to follow his link to Jane Epenson’s (former writer on Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and producer of the Sci-Fi series Battlestar Galatica) blog. Her newest post is about “punchline abuse”–the overused laugh lines sitcom writers beat to death like “That went well” and “Awk-ward!”

Posted by Maryc on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 1:35 pm.

17 Responses to “The Hollywood Report With MaryC”

Dr. Mike Denounces His Imaginary Friends To The Inquisition

When we last left Apollo and Hyacinthus (Once, in the heat of a summer afternoon, the lovers stripped naked, sleeked themselves with olive oil, and tried their hand at discus throw…)– oops, sorry, I mean Doug Giles and Professor Dr. Mike Adams, Pastor Doug had just delivered a sermon on squelching sassy secularists, which was either an attempt to set a Guiness Book record for alliteration, or simply a case of product placement, with Doug’s being the first Townhall column to be sponsored by the Letter “S.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Mike, though neither a clergyman nor theologian, has divined that fighting secularism is pointless, if the alternative is people wandering around worshipping God in their own idiosyncratic fashion, rather than receiving the Holy Spirit in the top-down, gravity-fed method favored by traditional faiths and enema nurses.

  
 …or DO I?

Last summer, I was sitting by the pool with a friend I will call Scott.

I really wish you wouldn’t.

We were at a wedding in Dallas and were staying at the Crescent Hotel on the same floor with the Phoenix Suns. We spent most of our time at the pool, which had nothing to do with the fact that Steve Nash’s wife also spent most of her time there in a bikini.

Considering this is the gynophobic Dr. Mike reporting, that’s probably the only accurate statement in the piece.  Unless she was flipping through a book of Tom of Finland etchings and he was in a good position to peek over her shoulder.

Fortunately, though, our conversation did eventually center on issues of personal morality and ethics.

I hear ya, man.  Whenever I’ve hung out by the pool on a hot summer day with a bunch of other dudes, drinking beer and leering at chicks in skimpy swimwear, the cat-calls, wolf whistles, and raunchy boasts always turn to discussions of Thomas Aquinas.  You can set your watch by it.

Scott told me he had raised his kids in the church and believed in God although he had not been to church regularly in a number of years.

Which means, of course, that he was LYING!  Saying you believe in God but don’t attend church is like calling yourself a bodybuilder but never going to the gym!

He said he felt no guilt over his absence from church. After all, it was a weekend business that kept him from attending. And, besides that, he said he was leading a “moral life” without going to church.

Immediately, I asked myself the crucial question:

“Why is my life a hollow lie?”

“How does one know he lives a moral life if he does not ever attend church?”

Exactly!  By the same reasoning, why should I trust your opinion that orangutans exist if you never go to the zoo?

 I also thought about some other people I had known who thought their lives were moral either without church or without God altogether.

Or to be more precise, I also thought up some other fictional, morally inferior friends who would help me to make a point without having to get my brow sweaty with reasoning or my hands filthy with facts.

One was an atheist I dated in college when I was also an atheist.

Doug recanted and joined the church when he realized the Christian dudes were getting all the good Headship, while he was stuck with a pair of passive purple four-balls.

 When asked about God she would frankly tell people “I don’t believe in all that s**t. But if there is a God, I will be saved because of my willingness to help others in need.” To her credit, she did help others in need. In fact, she gave her friend $400 when she became pregnant unexpectedly and “needed” an abortion.

Interestingly, my atheist girlfriend claimed to have been a victim of moral wrongdoing when her friend refused to pay her back after the abortion.

Well, abortion is a gateway drug, and as we all know, it’s just one small step from murdering your baby to defaulting on your credit card debt.

It would be years later – after I converted to Christianity – that I realized why her friend never paid her back. She was doing everything she could to forget about the abortion. And she resented my girlfriend for funding the biggest mistake of her life.

That’s why Ken Lay bitterly resented the Enron shareholders who gave him their money to steal.

From time to time, I also think of one of my former colleagues at UNC-Wilmington. Shortly after I overcame atheism and joined a church I asked her what her religious affiliation was. 

“Because I don’t like to just come out and ask a woman what her cup size is.  I like to break the ice with a little general chit-chat first before I hit her with a personal question.”

 She said “I’m not anything.” She added that she lived her life according to the principle of helping others.
Like my former girlfriend, she was staunchly pro-choice. She was also a big advocate for gay rights. She was involved extensively in helping young people “come to terms” with their sexuality. She even believed that minors should be allowed to have sex changes if that is what they wanted.

She even thought that underaged gays who had abortions should be allowed to harvest the genitals of their dead fetuses for use in their own sex change surgery.  And I am totally not making that up!

This notion of giving both emotional and monetary support to a neighbor only with regard to the recipient’s will is precisely why man needs church to lead a moral life.

‘Cause what happens you loan some chippie a double sawbuck to get her plumbing flushed and she don’t pay the vig?  Well, the reverand, he’s gonna go down there and make her cough up for the collection plate, know what I’m sayin’?

I am tempted to ask some of these indiscriminant do-gooders

Nothing worse than a charity that refuses to discriminate.

…whether they would loan Charles Manson a knife under the principle of always helping a fellow human in need. But, instead, I will take a few moments to quote Jesus of Nazareth who said it best as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets.”

Two things are important, here. First, the commandment to love God comes before the commandment to love our neighbors.

“So even though I’m an asshole, I’m off on a technicality!  YES!”

 Second, the two great commandments are “like” one another but they are not one and the same.

I’m pretty sure that’s why they numbered them.

I am writing this column for Scott because I have just learned of his most recent attempt to help a fellow human being in need. Just a few years after he spent $30,000 on his daughter’s wedding, I am told he has written a check to her for about $3000. It seems his daughter has decided that she has become more “liberated” and “independent” and, thus, is in “need” of a divorce from her husband. And, of course, she “needed” a loan to pay the lawyer’s retainer.

And I’m sure “Scott” appreciates the passive-aggressive tone, the broadcasting of his family troubles, and the multitude of little strawmen you’ve scattered around the text for him like you’re the frigging Blair Witch.  Boy, you’re lucky he’s fictional or Scott might just kick your ass.

Is it Godly and right to fund the wedding of two people in love? Is it also right to fund a divorce based solely on the personal needs of one party?

I don’t mind you loading the question, but I urge you to check the inspection certificate, because I’m pretty sure you’ve seriously exceeded the maximum load capacity.

 I would argue that without reading the Word of God and attending church these questions cannot be seriously resolved. 

Do you have to go to church in order to decide that this divorce (hell, any divorce) is the fault of the woman?  Can’t we just take it for granted that whenever a marriage breaks up, it’s because the spoiled bitch got her ass all “liberated” and “independent?”  I mean, we don’t need church for that, Dr. Mike, that’s what we’ve got you for.

I hope Scott will join me at Port City Church this Sunday in Wilmington. I also hope he knows I love him regardless of his decision.

…to squirt charcoal lighter fluid all over his daughter’s bra and throw it on the barbecue.  Some day he’ll realize that the love between a father and his child is fine, but it’s nothing compared to the love between Dr. Mike and his sock puppets, because the latter has that soupçon of Old Testament-style wrath that keeps the fictional chicks on their toes.  

Finally, I hope every churchgoer will join me in asking five friends to church this Sunday. We all need to take the time to reach out to others and help them walk with God.

Personally, I not only have a hard time believing that Dr. Mike walks with God, I suspect that if God sees him first, He crosses the street.

Life is full of uncertainty but without God two things really are certain: We will make a mess of our lives, and we will help others do the same.

And this is the one area in which Dr. Mike’s help could be described as indiscriminate.  So only hang out with imaginary people; that way, when you screw up their lives, or expose their private matters in print, they won’t be able to sue you.  Now if you’ll pardon Dr. Mike, he’s got a bowling date with Bunbury, George Glass, and Harvey the Rabbit.
P.S.  Is it even worth noting that while Dr. Mike “loves” and forgives his male friend, and begs “Scott” to accompany him to Sunday service, none of the women he mentions (i.e., the abortion-funding, home-wrecking vago-heretics who are underwriting cutlery for Charles Manson when they’re not buying a divorce on credit) seem to merit a similar invitation to Port City Church?

Posted by scott on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 6:29 pm.

68 Responses to “Dr. Mike Denounces His Imaginary Friends To The Inquisition”

Friday Beast Blogging — Splay Lady Splay Edition

Moondoggie…

“Like the view, baby?  You should’a seen it before she hauled me off to the vet.”
And Riley…

“That’s odd…Suddenly, I’m sensing porn…”

Posted by scott on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 9:21 pm.

15 Responses to “Friday Beast Blogging — Splay Lady Splay Edition”

Baby Got Brokeback

Longtime readers will remember the days when tough, streetwise preacher Doug Giles (think Pat Boone in The Cross and the Switchblade) and student-diddling academic Dr. Professor Mike Adams (think Mary Kay LeTourneau with a whinier voice.  And a smaller penis) were the Damon and Pythias of third tier wingnuts.   Back then, these two would routinely leave their emasculating spouses and seek refuge up on Brokeback Mountain, where they would reclaim their manliness by breathing deep of each other’s unshowered muskiness and then shooting some lethargic ruminants in a petting zoo.

We don’t know what happened to sunder this bond, once so tight and seamless they were practically conjoined, but it may have had something to do with that chronic erectile dysfunction Dr. Professor Mike is always complaining about.  Nevertheless, Doug and Dr. Mike both have columns in Townhall, and although their subjects are superficially different, there is a spiritual oneness to them, an increasing unity of soul and purpose so striking that you can almost see the two of them crawling toward each other, gut-shot, but flirty, like Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones at the end of Duel in the Sun.

What has occasioned this renewed confluence of manly essence?  Well, it seems that lately, both Doug and Dr. Professor Mike have decided to go out of their way to be jerks.  But which of these earnest young swains will be the first to drop the mask and bare his true feelings?  That’s where you come in.  For this week, you are judge and jury of the First Annual Doug Giles/Dr. Professor Mike S. Adams Pro-Am Gran Prix Invitational Jerk-Off!
Let’s begin with Doug, shall we?

For the last 40 years, there has been a belligerent, systematic secularization of the United States by the liberal thought cops.

Last 40 years?  Don’t be such a pussy, Doug!  You ask me, the systematic secularization got belligerant before there even was a United States, when Massachusetts Governor William Phipps started outlawing spectral evidence in witch trials.

A myopic Cyclops can see this.

Although, like Doug, the Cyclops wouldn’t have any depth perception.

Of the many mental things the secularist suffers from…

Remember when “secularism,” like homosexuality, was classified as a psychiatric disorder by the APA?  Those were the days.  It made things so much easier when we had to have my Grandma committed because of her complaints about our Christmas tree still being up in March.  Nana kept bitching about some mythical ”fire hazard,” never realizing the real hazard was the Lake of Eternal Fire she was going to find her withered ass roasting in if she didn’t stop trying to secularize our living room!

…two primary pains motivate [the secularist] to work against the universe: 1) a repulsion towards God and 2) a massive American History memory loss.

Just curious, but can you actually be repulsed toward something?  Maybe he meant “revulsion,” but I don’t want to put words in Doug’s mouth, primarily because it looks like he’s already got at least one foot in there, and I’d probably need a ramrod.

Being saddled with these sicknesses, instead of seeking healing or having an exorcism…

“I always thought I genuinely concerned about maintaining civil rights and guaranteeing religious freedom for all by supporting the Constitutional separation of church and state.  Turns out, I was just infested with demons.”

…they have chosen rather to create a new United States of Sassy Secularists in which the traditionalist is kicked to the curb and their novel material girls get to govern.

But what are the definitive signs that we’ve transitioned from the United States of America to The United States of Sassy Secularism?  One, I suppose, would be when Congress replaces the clergy-led opening prayer with a ritual call to tax the churches, and instead of “Amen,” the Invocation would end with all the distinguished members murmuring, “Kiss my grits!”

To accomplish the creation of the USSS, they have become busy monkeys…

See, they’re monkeys because the secularists believe in evolution.  See how Doug’s prose operates on several levels at once?

…trying to level authorities, rewrite records, become judge and jury of all things everywhere, homogenize cultures, pimp style over substance and deify power while they prop up the “victims of the system” to drive their imagined American magic bus.

Personally, I think “victims of the system” should be allowed to “die” and “reduce the surplus population.”  But if you’re one of these granny dress-wearing, Annie Greensprings-sippers who insists on wearing flowers in your hair when you go to San Francisco, and you’re forced to take imaginary public transportation, then I would urge you to avoid hallucinating buses between the hours of 7 and 9 AM, because it’s almost impossible to get a magic seat.
At least, I think that’s what Doug is saying.  As a former pusher, he clearly has access to better drugs than I do (and he gets the employee discount, to boot.)

On Planet Secularity where truth is dead, muscle-power becomes the operative standard of speech. The results are cultic conformity and group bullying.

Which, as we all know, is exactly the opposite of the kind of thing you find in a theocracy.

The chief orgasmic goal of the secular sellers of societal swill…

…is alliteration?

…is to create a rock-solid environment of political correctness—with the intended end being the cowing of people who might rustle their feathers by not parroting their already tried (and been found wanting) opinions.

Wait.  The ultimate goal of people who want to preserve the separation of church and state is to steal feathers from parrots?

They can’t allow people to speak and free think, because the realist and the truth dealer would pee on their little party.

Later, when Doug was busted for dealing truth, the amount found on him was far below the threshold for trafficking, and he was let go with a warning.  He did, however, get a ticket for public urination.

Therefore, the person who champions a traditional view of truth (not propaganda), who stands for the historical record (not the hysterical read) and who believes that biblically based, previously proven and transcendent standards should continue to serve as an external pattern to govern our nation’s character will endure more scorn than Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh and me crashing Rosie’s “Lesbians Only” plus size pool party.

Oh I wouldn’t feel so scorned and despised, Doug.  Between Rush’s pendulous man-boobs and your plucked and moussed metrosexuality, you two could probably pass for a couple at most lesbian only pool parties, especially if you arrived late, after everyone was already hammered on margaritas.

The faithful traditionalist who loves God and the way this nation was originally constituted will stand up against this hijacking of our nation by the secularists.

Even now, they’re planning to catch James Madison after Sixth Period and Snicker-snag on him behind the gym.

The traditionalist who’s worth his salt will not put on ButtSmacker lip balm and kiss the chunky backside of the secularists when they jam it in his face for an acquiescing smooch. No sir. No way. Not now. Not ever.

Well, as defiant last words go, it’s not exactly Nathan Hale’s, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country,” but it’s nice that Doug cares enough about his impending martyrdom to plan ahead.
Next up:  Dr. Professor Mike.

Posted by scott on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 4:01 pm.

59 Responses to “Baby Got Brokeback”

Michael Fumento Recommends Googling Michael Fumento At Least 3 Times A Day

Reasonable conservative Jon Swift takes a look at the arguments of certain prominent commentators and political figures who ask, Do We Need Another Terrorist Attack? The facile answer is no, of course not, what an asinine thing to say. But that’s only because for most of the country, the trauma of 9/11 was largely negative, yielding only loss and despair. If, however, you are one of the lucky few for whom the experience served to vindicate your belief in a clash of civilizations (or at least a dust-up featuring the United States and Europe versus some fanatics in a cave), or gave you carte blanche to rule without fear of criticism, or to start optional wars from which you and your friends would derive a certain, shal we say, “profiteering dividend,” then you might feel toward America the way a husband feels toward an insufficiently obedient spouse: the sting of the first slap is starting to wear off, and if she doesn’t shut her yap, you might be forced — more in sadness than in anger – to dole out a shiner.

As readers will recall, Michael Fumento is one such conservative Cassandra. He’s been shouting himself hoarse lately over America’s inability to sustain the peak state of terror achieved on 9/11, and desperately trying to hammer his words into a kind of inspirational verbal cockring that would allow us all to remain rigid with fear for up to four hours. And he’s not choosy or squeamish about picking potential allies in the Holy War Against Holy War. Unlike other conservatives who want to lay waste the soul-sapping smut factory of Hollywood, Michael wants to recruit it to spread the Good News of war without end, and feels the best way to start would be with a terrorist bombing of a movie theater (for boffo irony), followed by a slew of films featuring “Islamist” villains.

Oddly, Mr. Fumento objects to the respectful attention paid his views, and recently graced the pages of Mr. Swift’s blog with the same sort of elegant rebuttal he earlier favored us with here at World O’ Crap. The entire exchange is worth reading, but this was my favorite part:

MR. FUMENTO: Finally, maybe you want to tell your readers about how Hollywood changed Tom Clancy’s “The Sum of All Fears” so that Islamist terrorists became neo-Nazis? Why? Because the Islamist front group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)demanded it. Take a bit of time and read about it, rather than getting all your information from a World o’ Crap.

MR. SWIFT: It is certainly distressing that the movie “The Sum of All Fears” decided to defame neo-Nazis instead of Islamist terrorists after pressure by CAIR. Why don’t neo-Nazis have their own advocacy group? Perhaps you can start one.

Now that’s a reasonable conservative. 

Posted by scott on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 1:33 pm.

29 Responses to “Michael Fumento Recommends Googling Michael Fumento At Least 3 Times A Day”