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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| The Nobel-Hollywood Complex Implodes |
| 2009-10-19 |
| Noemie Emery, The Weekly Standard In which the author finds a common thread tying together Roman Polanski, David Letterman, and five clueless Norwegians.... ...Letterman will doubtless survive as a comic (and now as a punchline for other comedians), and Polanski's defenders will not lose jobs or money, but this is just part of the tale. Hollywood and the late-night comedians have been sizable assets for Democrats, and their clout is now diminished. Letterman was not just an entertainer, but a political force, who judged politicians, pressed them on issues, and controlled their access to a fairly large audience. Candidates launched campaigns on Letterman's program. Barack Obama went on his show a few weeks ago to try to revive his stalled health care agenda; it was political news when Letterman threw a tantrum because John McCain cancelled an appearance on his program during the financial implosion last fall. But politicians do not count creeps as their buddies, at least not in public: The McCains and Obamas will no longer seek Letterman out. He has lost his power to help--or to hurt--politicians, and lost the ability to joke about their failings without having the joke be on him. In the past year, as Howard Kurtz said, "Letterman has been more openly political, and tilted more to the left," so this is good news for the other persuasion. Sarah Palin has her revenge for the snotty remarks of last summer. Dave the comic may survive or even flourish, but Dave as a pol is kaputt. Hollywood as a political force is hardly dead, but the Polanski affair wounded it. In particular, anyone who spoke for Polanski or signed the petition supporting him has neutralized himself as a political player, as someone who can hold, host, or perhaps even go to a fundraiser, or perhaps even stand next to a candidate without doing damage to his prospects. On October 7, Politico reported that signers of the Polanski petition gave $34,000 in 2008 to groups backing Obama, that Harvey Weinstein gave $28,500 in 2008 to the White House Victory Fund that supported Obama (and $88,000 over the years to Hillary Clinton), and that six others gave contributions totaling $15,500 to Obama. Contributions in future campaigns will receive the same scrutiny. This may be somewhat unfair, as all politicians and parties are backed by unsavory people, but guilt-by-association is a time-honored tactic, and politicians are often asked to explain their supporters. Can we say chilling effect?... For years--even more so since 2002, when the Nobel Peace Prize committee smiled on ex-President Carter (as a slap at George Bush, it freely admitted)--conservatives have longed in vain to see the Norwegian parliamentarians exposed as a gaggle of partisans. It only got worse when the committee gave its prize in 2005 to Mohamed ElBaradei, the anti-U.S., pro-Iran U.N. arms inspector, and in 2007 to Al Gore, who had lost to Bush in 2000 in an exceedingly close and contentious election and railed against him ever since as a warmongering liar, and worse. Conservatives struggled for years but failed to gain traction with their critiques. So picture their glee on the morning of October 9 when they awoke to discover that the committee had contrived to discredit itself. In its ultimate slap at George Bush (who is no longer in office, but why should this stop them?), it had given the peace prize to Barack Obama for doing not much of anything beyond setting a new "tone." It certainly set a new tone in the response to the Nobel committee itself. Reporters gasped when they heard the announcement. Bloggers thought they had clicked by mistake on satire sites like the Onion and Scrappleface. "This is ridiculous--embarrassing even," said Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post. "Ridiculous," echoed Mother Jones's Kevin Drum. "Folks across the spectrum are asking, 'what has he done?' " wrote Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics, and many of the most appalled and scalding of comments would come from the left. "This is so far out of nowhere that it could be almost embarrassing," said the Guardian's Michael Tomasky. Even the Huffington Post couldn't stand it: "It is enormously premature . . . [and] to a certain extent cheapens the prior recipients," opined one of its contributors. Aside from the bad taste, the timing was terrible, as Obamania had started to fade in America, (his approval ratings were stuck around 50 percent), and a meme had been born that he was failing to meet expectations. The prize, as Politico noted, felt like "a breathless fan letter from the European elite." |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 From the article: "Candidates launched campaigns on Letterman's program. Barack Obama went on his show a few weeks ago to try to revive his stalled health care agenda...The McCains and Obamas will no longer seek Letterman out" Somebody better tell the WH; heard this afternoon that FLOTUS is going on the Leno program; while not the disaster the Letterman phuqueup is, it ain't much better. ratings in the tank. maybe its a case of two losers trying to prop each other up???? |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2009-10-19 23:32 |