Friday, December 7, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
The Wire: Episode I
From The AV Club Newswire:
"Somewhat softening the blow of the upcoming, abbreviated season of The Wire being its last, HBO is offering short "prequels" featuring Wire characters for free right now on Amazon.com, beginning Dec. 15 on HBO.com and its On Demand service, and each will air at the close of a fifth-season episode, starting with the third installment. Creator David Simon produced the vignettes concurrently with working on the show's finale, although they don't have any bearing on the season's story lines: Two focus on Proposition Joe and Omar as children (!) and the third follows McNulty and Bunk on McNulty's first day on the job, making them something akin to David Simon's Wire Babies. For people who love The Wire (there are a few of you out there, right?), shiiiiiiiit....Christmas just came a little early."
Seperated at Birth
I still can't believe SNL's Andy Samberg killed all those people in an Omaha shopping mall. Seriously, I didn't see that one coming. I guess the writers' strike is really starting to take its toll.
Monday, December 3, 2007
More Obama
The Wall Street Journal has a great opinion piece by Dan Gerstein on how the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are symbolized by the celebrity endorsements of Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Streisand, respectively. At the outset, it recognizes that celebrity political endorsements are generally insignificant (or more precisely, as "just another episode of the Democratic Party's long-running series of superstar superficiality."). However, Gerstein goes on to highlight why in this case there's something larger at play:
More than anything, Oprah is a uniquely transcendent figure in our public life: engaged in serious debates and willing to put her money where her mouth is, yet unsullied by the ugly political and culture wars of the past two decades, and independent in her thinking and affiliations. In this, she personifies the new post-Bush, post-partisan, post-boomer politics Sen. Obama is preaching. She is the way we want things to be (at least those of us outside the narrow margins of the ideological extremes): genuine, unifying, trustworthy, aspirational.
So how did the Clinton campaign respond to the news that Oprah would be stumping for Sen. Obama this coming weekend? Instead of sticking to their core message, and showing the confidence of a true front-runner, they fell into the tit-for-tat trap of countering with the endorsement of the polarizing, '60s-studded Streisand--in essence, the anti-Oprah. In doing so, the Clinton camp did not just fail to blunt or dilute the O-factor, they managed to accentuate it by unwittingly suggesting Mrs. Clinton stands for--like the Streisand anthem--the way we were.
This is a subtle, yet illuminating distinction on how the narratives of these two campaigns ought to be presented by the Obama campaign. Of course, I'm not the only one with advice for Mr. Obama. Karl Rove, the General Tarkin of the Bush administration, recently penned a column for the Financial Times advising Obama on how to handle the Clinton juggernaut.
More than anything, Oprah is a uniquely transcendent figure in our public life: engaged in serious debates and willing to put her money where her mouth is, yet unsullied by the ugly political and culture wars of the past two decades, and independent in her thinking and affiliations. In this, she personifies the new post-Bush, post-partisan, post-boomer politics Sen. Obama is preaching. She is the way we want things to be (at least those of us outside the narrow margins of the ideological extremes): genuine, unifying, trustworthy, aspirational.
So how did the Clinton campaign respond to the news that Oprah would be stumping for Sen. Obama this coming weekend? Instead of sticking to their core message, and showing the confidence of a true front-runner, they fell into the tit-for-tat trap of countering with the endorsement of the polarizing, '60s-studded Streisand--in essence, the anti-Oprah. In doing so, the Clinton camp did not just fail to blunt or dilute the O-factor, they managed to accentuate it by unwittingly suggesting Mrs. Clinton stands for--like the Streisand anthem--the way we were.
This is a subtle, yet illuminating distinction on how the narratives of these two campaigns ought to be presented by the Obama campaign. Of course, I'm not the only one with advice for Mr. Obama. Karl Rove, the General Tarkin of the Bush administration, recently penned a column for the Financial Times advising Obama on how to handle the Clinton juggernaut.
The Politics of Kindergarten
Taking a page straight out of The Onion, Hillary Clinton's campaign has attacked Barack Obama over claims that he never had a plan to run for President. From her website:
Today in Iowa, Senator Barack Obama said: "I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for."
In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want to Become President.'1/25/07 ]
Yes, that's right. The Clinton campaign is using essays Obama wrote in Kindergarten to attack his candidacy.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton responds: "I'm sure tomorrow they'll attack him for being a flip-flopper because he told his second grade teacher he wanted to be an astronaut."
As an aside, if anyone is interested in perfecting their Hillary Clinton impersonation I've provided three easy steps:
1. Deliver your speech in monotones.
2. Intermittently use your right hand to make pointing gestures while angling your head to the right.
3. Gradually bring your monotone, robot-like speech up successive octaves.
Observe:
Today in Iowa, Senator Barack Obama said: "I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for."
Oh really?
"Senator Obama's comment today is fundamentally at odds with what his teachers, family, classmates and staff have said about his plans to run for President," Clinton spokesperson Phil Singer said. "Senator Obama's campaign rhetoric is getting in the way of his reality."
In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled 'I Want to Become President.'1/25/07 ]
Yes, that's right. The Clinton campaign is using essays Obama wrote in Kindergarten to attack his candidacy.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton responds: "I'm sure tomorrow they'll attack him for being a flip-flopper because he told his second grade teacher he wanted to be an astronaut."
As an aside, if anyone is interested in perfecting their Hillary Clinton impersonation I've provided three easy steps:
1. Deliver your speech in monotones.
2. Intermittently use your right hand to make pointing gestures while angling your head to the right.
3. Gradually bring your monotone, robot-like speech up successive octaves.
Observe:
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