War Is Poetry

David Shaw (Media Matters, L.A. Times Calendar) reviews a film called Voices In Wartime, which "examines the pain of war through the words of poets since 2300BC." It's a very liberal, anti-war screed, just like Shaw himself.

Near the end of the article are these two paragraphs:

Although there are hints in the movie that there were legitimate reasons to fight World Wars I and II, the writers argue that such legitimacty no longer obtains, and that since World War II, civilians, rather than soldiers, have been "the primary victims of war."

The film suggests that the United States is a major contributor to this sad fact. The U.S., it says, "exports more arms than the rest of the world combined" and is thus responsible for much of the violence and unrest in the world today.

I don't know where to start, or even if I should. Our country wouldn't be where it is today without WWI & WWII. We know that there are always victims in war. We don't do the old Spartacus and Braveheart battles of meeting on an open field and duking it out until one side is the victor. And in the case of Iraq, maybe there would be less civilian casualties if the "fearless" terrorists would stop hiding behind mosques and schools.

As for the second paragraph, it's more of the same "Blame America" mentality. If I give a gun to someone, does that automatically mean they're going to run out and shoot someone? Depends. It depends on the disposition of the person. Is he prone to violence, or will he just have it until needed for self-defense? Either way, it does not matter that I gave the gun to this person. The blame and responsibility ultimately lies with the person committing the crime. The argument that America is responsible for the world's violence is like hearing someone suing a bullet manufacturer for making the bullet that killed their child.

Committing Hari-Kerry

I am very relieved that John Kerry is not our president, but he can't go away... he's too damn entertaining:

SEN. KERRY: We raised more money than any Democratic campaign in history. We involved more volunteers than any campaign in history. I won more votes than any candidate on the Democratic side has ever won in history... and if you add up the popular vote in the battleground states, I won the popular vote in the battleground states by two percentage points. ..... I won the youth vote. I won the independent vote. I won the moderate vote.

BUT YOU DIDN'T WIN THE ELECTION, GENIUS!

That's like saying you scored the only four touchdowns in the SuperBowl but the other team won by a field goal.

YOU STILL LOST!!!!

And how about this:

SEN. KERRY: Well, Tim, if you ask me about polls today, you're going to get one of the sort of quick and easy dismissals of all politics, because I'm a poll expert. And if you'll recall, every poll in the country eliminated me from the race in December prior to Iowa, and I turned around and won. And every poll eliminated me two or three times from even making the race close. So I think polls today are almost irrelevant, and I just don't pay any attention to them.

Plus, every exit poll said he won. And that's why he doesn't like them anymore.

Kerry On, Kerry Over

So John Kerry makes his views known again by telling Tim Russert on today's Meet The Press that the Iraqi election is not legitimate "when a whole portion of the country can't vote and doesn't vote." Hmm. A portion of our own country couldn't vote for various reasons (and I'm not talking the famed "voter fraud") and didn't vote. I wonder if Kerry thinks our own Presidential election was not legitimate...

Kerry had a plan. I know that's redundant, but this particular plan was a 4-pointer:

SEN. KERRY: The four steps were, number one, massive rapid training.

Do you want them trained well, or trained quickly?

SEN. KERRY: Number two, you've got to do reconstruction, and you've got to get the services to the Iraqis.

Hey Lurch, we've been doing that.

SEN. KERRY: Number three, you've got to bring the international community in the effort.

You can't. They don't care. Unless it affects them or it was a major natural disaster.... THEN they'll help.

SEN. KERRY: Number four, you've got to have the elections.

Guess what?

MR. RUSSERT: What specifically must President Bush do in your mind?

SEN. KERRY: Well, you have to behave as if you really are at war.

WHAT?!! What the fuck does he think is going on? Training exercises?

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat to the United States now than it was two years ago?

SEN. KERRY: No, it's more.

Then...

MR. RUSSERT: Is the United States safer with the newly elected Iraqi government than we would have been with Saddam Hussein?

SEN. KERRY: Sure.

You all know what he is... I'm not going to repeat... oh, hell. FLIP-FLOPPER!

Ted (hiccup) Kennedy said that after the elections, Bush should start getting troops out of Iraq. Surprisingly, Kerry disagreed. Yet...

SEN. KERRY: I understand exactly (emphasis added) what Senator Kennedy is saying, and I agree with Senator Kennedy's perceptions of the problem and of how you deal with it.

Then, one sentence later:

SEN. KERRY: I think (emphasis added) what Senator Kennedy is saying--and here I do agree with him--is that it is vital for the United States to make it clear that we are not there with long-term goals and intentions of our presence in the region.

Putting aside Kerry's reversal of certainty, just the other day President Bush said that if the Iraqi government wanted us to leave, we would. It's known everywhere that we're not there for the "long-term". It's up to the Iraqi's to take their country back.

There's more from Mr. Kerry, but you get the idea.

Boxer Down For The Count

After realizing she sounded like a whining, caustic idiot in questioning Condoleeza Rice during the recent Senate confirmation hearings, Senator Barbara Boxer now claims that she's a victim, that she was the one attacked:

Sen. Barbara Boxer says she is the real victim of last week's confirmation hearing for Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, yet continued yesterday to question the national security adviser's honesty.

"She turned and attacked me," the California Democrat told CNN's "Late Edition" in describing the confrontation during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

"I personally believe — this is my personal view — that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth," Mrs. Boxer told Miss Rice, who has been President Bush's national security adviser since 2001.

OK. Boxer just said Rice's loyalty to the "mission" of selling the war overshadowed the truth. Simply because she "sold" the war from faulty intel that the CIA has not apologized for and which Boxer herself, and her party, believed?

Miss Rice responded that she "never, ever lost respect for the truth in the service of anything. It is not my nature. It is not my character."

"And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what went on before and what I said without impugning my credibility or my integrity," Miss Rice said.

Mrs. Boxer yesterday called that response a "good debating technique."

"When you really don't know what to say about a specific, you just attack the person who is asking the questions," Mrs. Boxer told CNN.

Now, can Boxer please explain how she was attacked? Boxer, in essense, called Rice a liar. Attack. Rice asked Boxer, in essence, not to call her a liar. Respect.

This is a perfect example of the left, in losing an argument or being presented with the facts, twisting words out of proportion and explaining what people "really" mean.

This Boxer got knocked the f*ck out.

Long Live The King Of Late Night

I started watching Johnny Carson almost religiously during the start of my senior year in late 1984. I had watched him off and on before that, but it became a ritual to at least watch his opening monologue before I went to sleep.

He was able to connect with his audience in a way no one else has before or since. He had an infectious laugh that rarely failed to get you laughing. And you knew when he genuinely liked a comedian, especially when he would invite them to sit with him after their 8-minute set.

Johnny was a master of the reaction shot. And he was at his best when his jokes were bad.

He was a great interviewer because he was actually interested in his guests, even more so when they were average people with unusual talents.

There is no equivalent to Johnny today. Jay Leno couldn't interview to save his life, and hasn't been funny since the late 80's. David Letterman is good, but he doesn't have the warmth to connect with his audience. Conan O'Brien is too goofy on all accounts. And no one else mattered.

I feel honored that I was able to attend five tapings of The Tonight Show, including ones with Arnold Schwarzenegger promoting Raw Deal and Madonna's first-ever talk show appearence in 1987.

There is no way I could do him justice by mentioning his characters and skits, so I would highly recommened renting or buying the Ultimate Carson Collection.

I'll miss Johnny, and I wish his family all the best.

N.Y.P.D. Bull

Steven Bochco, the man who, through his show N.Y.P.D. Blue, brought us the "groundbreaking" bare-ass shots and liberal uses of the words "asshole" and "prick", now says TV, at least network TV, is too "conservative."

"I don't think today we could launch or sell a show like 'NYPD Blue,"' Bochco said.

We all know that theatrical films or direct-to-cable movies can show or do pretty much anything. You generally pay for those. But N.Y.P.D. Blue was a gimmick show. Sure, it had good drama, but the titillation factor was high, since you knew you were going to see Amy Brenneman or Kim Delany's ass, or in the first season, David Caruso's.

But now, basic cable is the place for good shows that carry generous portions of violence, nudity, and language. Like The Shield. Michael Chiklis plays a bad cop, who kills, sleeps around, and does other bad things. Or Nip/Tuck, where the plastic-surgeon lead sleeps with his patients, and the gore factor is high from the operations they show.

I love The Shield, and I think Nip/Tuck is a fine show. But these programs have their "R" rated content for a reason: it's intregal to the show. N.Y.P.D. Blue is a cop drama that seems to throw in the above-mentioned words just for effect.

All three C.S.I. shows, Third Watch, 24, and a number of others are violent shows, or at least explicit in their descriptions of violent acts. And Bochco calls TV too conservative? Give me a break. His show is ending on it's 10th year, and he's got nowhere to go, so he complains about the state of TV today.

Ultimately, he said, TV will go back to allowing more adult drama. "You're never going to put the genie back in the bottle," Bochco said. "We're never going to see television go back to what it was 20 years ago."

20 years ago, TV had Hill Street Blues (another Bochco show.... what a coincidence) and the Cosby Show. There were NO shows like the ones I have mentioned. Although we did have Miami Vice, which showed the possiblity of TV giving us a mini-movie every week.

It was a simpler time.

...And Things Of That Nature

Am I to understand that Channel 4's Conan Nolan is questioning Governor Schwarzenegger's use of funds to help the people hit by the mudslide in La Conchita?

From NBC4.TV:
At the same time he says the state needs to save money, Schwarzenegger seemed to be pledging state funds -- potentially millions -- to rebuild the mudslide-ravaged community of La Conchita, even though geologists say the community is destined for another disaster and should be condemned.

The governor told Nolan that he did not offer to buy residents' homes, just to help them rebuild.

"And if that means money, so be it?" Nolan asked.

"Yes, that is what money should be for -- emergencies like that -- and, of course, to help the children in this state," Schwarzenegger said.

You've really got to be kidding on this. Nolan is a local reporter. These people could have been his neighbors. But it only seems to matter when it's MASS of deaths as opposed to a few locals.

You know, I don't seem to remember the huge global outporing of food and money and shelter after the 1987 Whitter quake, or the 1989 Loma Prieta Quake, or the 1992 rains, or the string of Florida hurricanes, or the Okalhoma City Bombing, The World Trade Center bombing, or the 9/11 attacks. Oh sure, the world expressed sympathy. But I ask, because, I honestly can't remember, what foreign nation pledged the kind of support that we've given to the entire world at one time or another to the United States when we've experienced disaster?

None. We take care of our own. And unfortunately, the more the world sees us help anybody and everybody in need, the more they feel they can just brush us off.

So yes, Mr. Nolan, the Governor is using funds to help people in need.

It's called the lamentation of the people.

There's No Business Like Show Business

Since the people could vote this year for the People's Choice Awards, instead of the usual Gallop poll, it means something to Mel Gibson, having his amazing film The Passion Of The Christ win for best drama. The people have spoken. But when you beg the people to vote, it becomes a ridiculous political campaign. Michael Moore asked people to vote for Fahrenheit 9/11 as the best film, then acted surprised when he won:

Moore dedicated his win to the U.S. troops fighting overseas and said he was "amazed" that people voted his film their favorite.

"I love making movies and I'll take this as an invitation to make more 'Fahrenheit 9/11s,'" Moore said.

It's amazing to be that big and that transparent.

I have a sneaking suspicion Hollywood will not give any awards, let alone nominations, to The Passion, not only because Hollywood never knows what to do with a good film, but because the film scares them. And further proof emerged yesterday when the film was nominated by the American Society of Cinematographers. Yes, it is a beautiful film. But the Director's Guild, Procducer's Guild, and the Screen Actor's Guild have all shut out The Passion. The award is a technical award.

No emotion there.