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| The Filmsnobs Endorse the Carolina Panthers for Super Bowl XXXVIII |
| 01.21.04 (10:43 pm) [edit] |
I used to like Tom Brady, and not just for that remarkable Super Bowl upset of the NFL's most evil team, the St. Louis Rams. Last year, the Patriots didn't make the playoffs. Tom Brady struggled--though a Super Bowl MVP, he was still a largely unproven starting quarterback. After this season's shutout loss to the man whose job he took, a 31-0 drubbing at the hands of Drew Bledsoe and the Buffalo Bills, Brady could have let self-doubt swallow his NFL career. But he didn't. He's not the best or most dynamic quarterback in the league, but he makes plays and wins games. Brady's got guts.
I haven't turned on Tom Brady because he's apparently a Republican. I've turned on Tom Brady because he whored himself to the Bush Administration. They found the whitest, most non-threatening player in the Super Bowl for that one shot when the President boldly called for pro sports team owners to take care of the steroid problem. The statement itself seemed really out of place in the State of the Union. It's almost like they went out of their way to attach Bush to some youthful white-bread nice-young-man. The image of Tom Wonder Brady as the ideal of pro sports seemed like it had racial overtones. When someone says steriods, don't you think of Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa like I do? There's noooo way a nice young white man like Tom Brady uses steriods. Bush probably would have done the same thing with Peyton Manning, but I wonder--would President Bush have invited a 240 pound, ripped-up, big fro-ed Donovan McNabb to attach an image to? I'll bet not. But Tom Brady? He's such a nice young man.
Tom Brady should have been stumping for fellow "New England Patriot" John Kerry in New Hampshire. Hell, Kerry even embarrassed himself by stumbling through some New England Patriot allusion in his Iowa victory speech. But instead of being a hometown guy, instead of being a loyalist, Tom Brady let himself be Bush's media prop. Whatever happened to loyalty in pro sports? I guess that's just the free market at work, another one of those glories of unbridled capitalism. So welcome Tom Brady, Republican icon of the clean, pure white athlete. If Bush really wanted to reach out to the black community, he should have invited McNabb. But the Eagles lost, and I'm not talking about that.
But that's not the only reason the Filmsnobs are endorsing the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII. The Carolina Panthers are the underdog. Two of their coaches are fighting cancer. They were picked last in their division at the beginning of the year. But they persevered. The Cowboys were favored in their first playoff game. Nobody gave them a chance against the Rams. Last week, the Panthers went into the most hostile environment in the NFL and came out winners. All week they talked about being positive, about propping each other up. The Eagles were mostly testy and nervous, sniping and negative. It fell them--even their Pro Bowl quarterback Donovan McNabb got knocked out of the game. All year, everyone said that the Carolina Panthers had no quarterback, that Jack Delhomme was too boyish to get the job done. Suddenly, he seems like a winner. His positive attitude, his cool under fire saw them through--Delhomme brought the Panthers back in the fourth quarter and overtime seven times. Suddenly, Delhomme and the Panthers look like they have what it takes. We're seeing a lot of that out of Carolinians this week.
---shimes
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| President Bush, Please Send James Cameron to Mars |
| 01.20.04 (8:06 pm) [edit] |
Here at the Filmsnobs Web Journal, space is normally reserved for massive spectacles of pop culture where entertainment and politics collide. But tonight, President Bush's State of the Union address promised to do this very thing: The incumbant's chance to strike down, with great vengence and furious anger, the images of the spineless pussies flogging around the Iowa caucuss. However, the White House proved that even a day is beyond their contemporaneous skills because the speech delivered was a response to an expectancy. Bush got up and re-argued his position on Iraq...for twenty minutes. It's almost like Rove scheduled the Union address right after the caucuss just to deflate Gov. Howard Dean, an anti-war zealot and sure-bet winner of the Iowa caucuss.
As we all know, the two top precinct getters of the caucuss were US Senators who VOTED FOR THE IRAQI RESOLUTION. Never mind that the Address was designed as a purely political vessel (a move Clinton never did forthright), this was as responsive piece of defensive rhetoric as Bush has ever delivered. Bush has always focused on plans and ideas in these national addresses. Were these ideas crazy and borderline criminal? Sure, but they were packaged and produced to appeal to the mass audience as well as anything Bruckheimer could produce. Tonight was a different President Bush: a cranky speaker whose sole purpose was to perform a death blow on Howard Dean, his campaign's ideal opponent. Is this really what a President with a 60% approval rating does? Is this what a President who believes that his unilateral foreign policy is the right thing does?
Yes, I guess so. Or this could be in fear of the fact that he must continue to conceal a domestic policy designed to rally the base but could very easily frighten the 20% of voters who favor neither party. The gay marriage amendment was implied, No Child Left Behind was buried behind shots of an increasingly angry Ted Kennedy, and his health care segment was bogged down in baffling policy speak. In his book, "Had Enough", James Carville analogized the Republicans to Creole workers in his home town that would compliment customers in English only to curse them in Creole. Carville wrote that Republicans speak in warm terms but use a harsher tone when it comes to the actual policy. Despite the right's assurance that health insurance is best left to the HMO's and this will lead to a healthier and happier country, Bush rattled off some very technical language about saving accounts and tax credits. Geez, I've taken classes on this shit and I didn't really fully understand it. How is this going to resonate in the Rust Belt? His hope of a pro-war response to the anticipation of a hippie Iowa vote unmasked that harsh policy-speak.
But why would they even have to be this desperate this early? Are they worried that one day, people are going to wake up and realize that they have no job, that their kid is getting shot at in Iraq for no real reason, and that the President of the United States is worried about beating Al-Queda to the Moon? The issue of a manned mission to Mars is an interesting thing, considering all of the problems we face right now that aren't Mars-related. It's easy to say this is merely a leftover from Bush 41's file, but this could be a pretty cool distraction. We could send Oscar-winner James Cameron to film the endeavor and Fox News could start a Mars-related offshoot that plays footage endlessly. And if it doesn't work, then the worst thing that the US loses is a [i]True Lies [/i]sequel.
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| Howard Dean Scares the Hell Out of Me and Tom Harkin |
| 01.19.04 (10:09 pm) [edit] |
It's Iowa Caucus night, and I have just fielded six phone calls in the last hour, all saying something along the lines of "Holy Mother of God, Howard Dean just came out of TV like that thing in 'The Ring' and damn near strangled me." Holy Hellfire! I know it's really difficult for Northeasterners to understand, but Howard Dean just frightens us Midwesterners. And that is why Howard Dean simply cannot be the Democratic nominee if we expect to beat President Bush. This election will be decided (and where the Democrats have to pick up votes) in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, possibly Florida, and the desert Southwest. The Midwest is 53-47 country in most polling, but Bush's approval and re-election numbers consistently hover around 60-65--meaning that there's a good 10-15 percent of the Midwestern middle-ground that's in play. Dean's problem is that his arrogant, abrasive, "Let me tell the President a little about foreign policy" lecturing grates on the Midwestern sensibility. Howard Dean's vein-bursting speechifying scares the hell out of people here. He's not electable where he needs to be electable.
On Iowa Caucus night in a span of fifteen minutes, John Edwards came out, arms raised, big smile, working the room while he composed himself. He gave an eloquent, sunshiny, deeply felt speech that speaks closer to the issues that the party should be caring about. In fact, his speech was so much more graceful and articulate than Kerry's that he may well become the story. Edwards really boosted his standing in a lot of people's eyes. He suddenly seemed like a viable vice-presidential candidate.
And then somewhere else in Iowa, Dean marched out with Tom Harkin, the most powerful politician in Iowa, whose endorsement was supposed to deliver the state to him. Dean raised his arms with Harkin. Then Dean ripped off his sport coat; he rolled up the shirt sleeves. Dean's faced puffed up and turned red. He started stomping around the stage as if he's looking for something to smash, like Bruce Banner morphing into The Incredible Hulk. Dean took the mike and whipped himself into a frenzy. He reassured the crowd that they were going to march through the Super Tuesday states. In the back, Harkin was still eating it up, as if to say, "That's the sort of red-meat candidate we need."
And then somebody in the crowd distracted him. I didn't hear what was said, but Dean paused. He looked around. The fact that Dean was so fired up is not what makes him scary. If you watch closely, you'll see at this moment Dean trying to compose himself. He knows he's going a little far, but he could have calmed down. But he lost his composure; he reacted to his audience--which is the most sticking criticism of his campaign to begin with. He fed their anger without self-restraint. This single moment embodies the Dean campaign. When Dean lost control, he re-worked himself into a frenzy. Dean nearly pulled an Ozzy Osbourne and bit the head off the microphone. "WE'RE GOING TO WIN IN MASSACHUSETTS! WE'RE GOING TO WIN IN NORTH CAROLINA! WE'RE GOING TO WIN IN ARKANSAS! AND MISSOURI!" Dean called out the home states of all his opponents. Loudly. Did you see that crazy look in his eyes when his face turned red, that vein bulged out of his neck, and he started pointing and swinging his arms around the room? There was a look in his eyes that crossed over from enthusiasm into something close to zealotry. Howard Dean came off like the Pat Buchanan of the Democratic Party, and thus compromised his chance at the White House.
I'm not going to bury Howard Dean, or say that this loss matters a lick as far as the nomination goes. But if you want to see why Howard Dean has no chance of winning those Midwestern states he needs to defeat Bush, check out the replay of his "concession" speech. Do you see how uncomfortable Tom Harkin looks in the background over Dean's right shoulder? Do you see him duck for cover when Dean started yelling the names of his Democratic opponents' home states? That's why Midwestern Democrats have cold feet about Howard Dean. Hell, Dean said, "We're supposed to do some polite stuff," as if "being polite" were some chore for chumps. We're a friendly, laid back people, and especially to Midwestern moderates, we're wary of zealots--be they Jerry Falwell or Howard Dean. The media did not create that crazy look in Dean's eye. He came out of my TV and into my living room to personally scare the hell out of me tonight. And Tom Harkin, apparently.
---shimes
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