The Lyndon Larouche campaign uses subtlety and rational reasoning
And here you thought it was only in the United States that you could find the crazies.
Sure, Hitler killed millions of Jews and all, but Obama told NASA they couldn't send people to the moon again! IT'S THE SAME THING, PEOPLE!
So much has changed in just a few months, eh? Last fall, you avoided talking to U.S. network news anchors. Now you're sitting down with George Stroumboulopoulos.
(The interview is actually from December, but CBC just uploaded it today to its YouTube channel)
You know, it's interesting how the networks are falling all over themselves about their Obama inauguration coverage next week, considering how they only reluctantly gave airtime for the crisis in our own government a month ago.
You know, this almost makes me want to watch Vision TV. For the subject matter, not for Ralph.
Selling a senate seat? Blackmailing a newspaper into firing writers? Gotta be the governor of Illinois.
(Side note: "Before that, he served as a U.S. Congressman for Illinois' 5th district from 1997 until 2003, according to his online biography." - Could they not confirm membership in the U.S. House of Representatives with a more official source?)
It's a fun week for politics. Though backroom undemocratic kingmaking in our government is far less sexy.
"It's just politics," Bob Rae said about 10 seconds ago. How true.
I just finished watching Michael Moore's free-to-web (but only in the U.S. and Canada, wink wink) documentary "Slacker Uprising," about his tour of swing states just before the 2004 presidential election.
Well, you get what you pay for, I guess.
I've always had mixed feelings about Michael Moore's work. I liked Sicko, The Awful Truth and Bowling for Columbine, and I was ok with Fahrenheit 9/11.
But Slacker Uprising doesn't explain any issue. It doesn't argue any point. It doesn't actually try to change anything, despite Moore's pleas that the film be screened before the election. It's just a bunch of videos of stump speeches pieced together with a bunch of videos of artists performing protest songs. This review from the Ann Arbor News explains it pretty well.
There are some interesting parts, about how Republicans attempted to stop the speeches, offered money to get student unions to cancel them, and even showed up, chanted and prayed out loud while Moore was speaking, but there's already a documentary about that.
For those used to Moore's passionate, personal arguments about political issues, you'll be disappointed. He doesn't even narrate the movie. Instead, you just hear him speaking to the converted, to the point where the hyperpartisanship of those audiences might turn you off from voting for Democrats.
Michael Moore chanting "one more day" isn't entertaining, moving, inspiring or educational. And it's not worth watching.
We've now gotten to the point where people are questioning the journalistic integrity of Us Weekly.
Politics does strange things to people.
Dear Sarah Palin,
Look, I know speechwriting is hard. Gathering those dozens of advisers and having witty sayings filtered through focus groups can take time. And you really did put a huge amount of effort into that acceptance speech the other day.
But 37 million people watched that speech. One would assume that includes the few hundred hard-core supporters you're speaking in front of today, as well as the thousands of loser couch potatoes like myself who have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than watch CNN.
So why are you repeating your speech verbatim? Why are you using the exact same lines that have been replayed over the news networks since? And why, oh why, are you repeating the same jokes you gave then, as if your crowd hadn't heard them before? You know, the joke about your kids missing the chef you fired? Or the one about selling the governor's private jet on eBay (even though you didn't)?
People aren't laughing at your jokes, because they've all heard them before. They're applauding, because they liked it the first time and are so awed by your presence that they don't mind not seeing anything new.
TV viewers are a bit more discriminating.
I admit, I get a perverse pleasure out of people who are the creators of their own misfortune. Tragedies in the classical sense. Not necessarily causing death, but at least causing inconvenience. Hurricane Gustav created two examples of this, and the victims are our favourite punching bags: politicians and the media.
The first comes out of the video above. A few weeks ago, Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family posted a video online in which he half-jokingly suggests that Christian Conservatives pray for rain during Barack Obama's acceptance speech at an open-air stadium. They say they never meant for it to be taken seriously, but it was, and the video was pulled (the one above is a copy).
Of course, there was no rain the night of Obama's acceptance speech, and the Democratic convention went off without a hitch. But the day after, as John McCain was announcing his vice-presidential pick, we start hearing about this hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast. Toward New Orleans. Three years almost to the day that Katrina struck.
Oh the irony. It almost makes me believe in a god, as it did Michael Moore.
The second example comes from our good friends at CNN. When Barack Obama announced his VP pick, CNN filled the airwaves with news and analysis. Responding to a viewer comment via Facebook (oh how the media has changed, folks), anchor Rick Sanchez says this on air:
By the way, I have to share this with you. It is from Sam. He says, Rick -- this is on Facebook -- I'm counting on you to do the same kind of coverage when McCain announces his vice president as you're doing tonight when Barack Obama has announced his vice president. Sam, we've already made that decision. I can guarantee you we will.
No caveats, no ifs or buts, just a bold guarantee. Of course, neither CNN nor the other news networks are coming close to meeting that guarantee for the convention. Half the news about Sarah Palin was surrounded (literally) by hurricane updates, and the convention coverage is being threatened by it. Even the convention itself is changing plans at the last minute to deal with people (like President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal) who can't speak.
I actually feel a bit bad for the Republicans. It's not their fault this hurricane hit with such horrible timing, nor is it their fault that Bristol Palin got pregnant. If they lose in November, it should be because of the issues, not because the campaign was derailed by ... well, acts of God.
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