You probably haven't thought a whole lot about the kind of aliens that come from outer space during this electoral season. But, as Bill Pullman proved in Independence Day, the role of the United States President in any space invasion is vital. So the little green men are here, Barack Obama or John McCain who you got?
Barack Obama's under the bus tour claimed its latest victim yesterday as he coolly dismissed rumors he is good friends with actress turned dreadful singer Scarlett Johansson.
Johansson, one Obama's most outspoken supporters, has listed Obama among her "five dads." (Joining Woody Allen, Tom Waits, Bill Murray and Bob Dylan.) She made this distinction even creepier by later joking she was engaged to Obama.
While Scarlett has conceded that after their glorious first meeting at a private fundraiser she hasn't been able to spend that much time with her political daddy, she has insisted they have a very healthy back and forth email relationship and breathlessly gushed “someone like the senator who is constantly traveling and constantly ‘on’ — how can he return these personal e-mails?"
Not true, according to Obama, telling reporters he only emailed Johansson once, after an aid had forwarded him her message, and the extent of his response was "Thank you, Scarlett, for doing what you do."
Obviously somebody is mistaken. And while I don't think very highly of Barack's general truthiness, I trust a 23-year old entertainment type even less. On the off-chance Scarlett isn't exaggerating and the incriminating emails get out . . . we are going to have ourselves a bizarre and not insignificant scandal.
But yesterday Barack wasn't the only political figure to ditch a hot celebrity female with whom there has been talk of a non-biological family relation. Nelson Mandela also got in the act by dumping "adopted granddaughter" Naomi Campbell from his official 90th birthday party.
Now Mandela is far from the under the bus tossing sort -- just ask current world enemy number one but still Friend of Nelson Robert Mugabe. Meaning Naomi's transgression must have been a lot worse than claiming she had the Noble Price winner's personal email address.
In fact the supermodel was convicted of assaulting two police officers at London's Heathrow airport and calling them "crackers." But the kicker was she did so while wearing a cap which read 46664 -- Mandela's ID number during the 27 years he spent in prison for seeking racial justice.
Adopted adult granddaughters never learn, do they?
Today there is increased pressure on Barack Obama to cut ties with long-time Democratic insider Jim Johnson, who Obama had tapped to help select his running mate.
Johnson stands of accused of, among other things, getting a seven million dollar below market rate home loan from Countrywide Insurance through an informal program set up for friends of the embattled mortgage company's CEO.
Obama has in the past used strong language in railing against Countrywide and other subprime lenders, making his association with Johnson -- and Johnson's with the lender -- awkward.
So far Obama has yet to dismiss Johnson with his trademark "this is not the Jim Johnson I know" kiss off. But a controversy surrounding the "vetting of a vetter" is an ominous sign for what is about to become a brutal political slog.
During the Clinton/Obama primary fight a favored tactic of both sides was to hit at the other through the gaffes and biographical glitches of their surrogates and associates, and then to suggest their opponent distance themselves from said surrogate or associate. What prevented this from getting completely out of hand was that every couple weeks there was something more important to focus on: Actual voting results.
Only now, since there won't be any of that voting stuff until November, there will be plenty of time to play the guilt-by-association game to its under-the-bus-tossing conclusion. The revelations about Johnson are surely the tit for a tat the Obama camp launched a couple weeks ago when they put pressure on John McCain to get rid of advisers who had done work as lobbyists.
But, cynical political maneuvering aside, is it even wise for the McCain camp to force Obama to get rid of Johnson? Maybe not. Twice before Johnson has vetted VPs for the Dems. First in 1984 he came up with Geraldine Ferraro, but neglected to uncover that the New York Congresswoman's husband's finances were a criminal mess. Then in 2004 Johnson suggested John Edwards, who never jelled with John Kerry, and who was only able to increase the Democrat's vote share in his home state of North Carolina by .4 percent.
Whether it be Jim Johnson or John Hagee, could there be wisdom in letting the other guy's liability stick around long enough to do some real damage?
During a campaign rally in April, Barack Obama appropriated Jay-Z's "you gotta get, that, dirt off your shoulder" gesture to dismiss a shaky debate performance. Seeing a grown man in a suit and running for president employ such a ridiculous non-verbal communication technique made me cringe and feel overwhelmingly embarrassed for the presidential candidate, the crowd cheering the presidential candidate, and for myself for having to have been alive when this took place.
Then the media broke down the significance of the gesture, and I cringed again -- for the media mostly, but also for myself for having to have been alive when this took place.
Over the last couple days another "hip" Obama gesture -- this one a fist pound he completed with his wife -- has elicited even more analysis.
But this time I didn't cringe at all. In fact I viewed it as one of the most positive developments of this campaign; for I sincerely hope one day the fist pound will replace the handshake as America's favored greeting ritual.
My big problem with the handshake is that it is an open invitation to allow another person to attempt to display their physical dominance by smashing their germs into your skin. Wheres in the fist pound contact is always fleeting, and anyone coming in too hard will do so at the risk of their own knuckles.
While have my doubts that Obama could possibly "change" the culture of Washington, as he likes to claim he will, he might just be the guy who can change the way our power brokers say hello and seal their shady deals. And that's the kind of change I can believe in.
(I'm bumping this up because it seems to be what everybody is looking for. It was originally posted Monday at 12:15 PM. Since then Larry Johnson has provided no further information -- and gets more unreliable by the hour. On the other hand Democratic insider Bob Beckel got on TV this morning and stated he expects a Michelle Obama bomb to drop tomorrow. Actually, having now seen the Beckel interview on tape [I can't watch youtube videos on my computer] I would say Beckel expresses extreme worry, not a pure expectation, that this could happen.)
Bouncing around the innards of the world wide web, there is potential political scandal more explosive than all the others that have come to pass in this super-charged electoral season.
Some bloggers -- led by ex-CIA agent and Hillary Clinton supporter Larry Johnson -- have been advancing the existence of a so-called "Whitey Tape," a video recording in which Michelle Obama repeatedly uses the epithet "whitey" during a mean-spirited rant in front of the congregation of the controversial Trinity church that she and her husband just "resigned" from.
Although he hasn't seen the tape himself, Johnson, who blogs at noquarterusa.net, wrote a few weeks ago that he knows four reliable people who had, and they tell him it would be a devastating game changer for Obama if and when the tape leaks to the public.
Johnson also claims the tape is currently in the hands of Karl Rove, and that the GOP strategist plans on releasing it in October to maximize its damage to the Democrat's chances of capturing the White House. According to Johnson, word of the tape got out after a right-wing billionaire who Rove showed the tape (likely casino magnet Sheldon Adelson) offered up a million dollar bounty for a copy of the recording because he has it in for John McCain and doesn't want to give the Arizona Senator the benefit of an "October Surprise."
While I don't doubt the possibility that Michelle Obama railed against "whitey" from the pulpit -- the sermons of Reverend Wright and Father Pflegger suggest taking such a pose can really get the crowd going over there -- the involvement of ultimate Republican bogeyman Rove and a Machiavellian, double-crossing billionaire casino boss gives the whole thing a Hollywood quality which had my BS detector flying all over the place when I initially read about it.
Yesterday marked the first time the mainstream media (in so much as Geraldo is the MSM) addressed the topic when the pugnacious Fox News host asked the suddenly ubiquitous Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone if he had heard about the tape.
Stone, fresh off maybe providing the tip that took Eliot Spitzer down, said that he had, and that so far seven networks have contacted him to comment on it. Stone denied having seen the tape himself, but expressed confidence that it does exists, and said he believes one of the "major networks" already has their hands on the incriminating video.
Also yesterday, Johnson provided more logs for the fire when he wrote that the tape is of a panel discussion at Trinity, and Nation of Islam hate-monger Louis Farrakhan is present and involved during the event. He also divulged that the tape was originally acquired by a Republican candidate who is no longer in the race, but who had a crack opposition research team. (Presumably Mitt Romney.)
Late last night a pro-Obama blog seemed to confirm the existence of the tape, but with a twist. The Booman Tribune posits Michelle Obama wasn't saying "whitey" but "why'd he," as in why did he (President Bush) cut off medicare, let New Orleans drown, etc.
The Boorman Tribune's account of what was said has been disputed today by various right-wing bloggers, and there is now a bizarre amount of chatter over the specific transcript of a tape nobody has confirmed actually seeing.
I'll confirm I'm not very schooled in what goes in a church that preaches black liberation theology, but, from what little I've seen, a rhetorical flourish such as morphing "why'd he" into "Whitey" would be a crowd pleaser. Meaning they could all be right.
So what happens next? Since I'm diving into the wild speculation of others, I'll add a bit of my own: The tape will break under the flash of the Drudge Report siren.
I'm not the only Drudge-watcher who has noticed the generally-right-wing Internet trouble maker has been unusually soft on Obama. Granted Drudge hasn't had a dog in the fight since Romney dropped out. (It's hard to believe a First Amendment absolutist like Drudge would take much of shine to a McCain candidacy.) But for Drudge, who rarely passes up an opportunity to engage in race-baiting, to just about completely ignore the whole Reverend Wright controversy -- as he did -- is extraordinarily suspicious.
What if the Romney operatives who had been feeding Drudge quality anti-Giuliani information back in 2007 also tipped him off to the Whitey Tape? And now Drudge is making sure Obama sticks around long enough for him to drop the tape at the most impactful time.
Or maybe Drudge doesn't have the tape, but, like Roger Stone, knows that a network does. That network could be weary of running it -- especially if there is doubt as to what Michelle is actually saying -- and Drudge is just biding his time until an insider slips him a copy. This is exactly how Drudge broke the Lewinsky story which made him famous.
Or maybe this is all a ploy by an ex-CIA agent who is trained in spreading misinformation. Only time will tell.he expects
Before there were blogs, it was only Hollywood stars who could express their unfiltered and completely unsolicited opinions about politics to mass audiences.
Sean Penn has been taking advantage of this special access ever since his Madonna-era photographer slugging days, but he has really stepped it up lately with his increasingly hysterical criticisms of President Bush.
So, now that the Bush administration is in its final throes, has the volatile actor's political outlook become more optimistic?
On the red carpet at Cannes, Penn was asked who he supports for President. While Penn refused to endorse a candidate, he did admit he was "excited by the hope Barack Obama is inspiring."
Then, to prove he hadn't got all starry-eyed and will continue to serve the public with his biting criticism, Penn went on to accuse Obama of having a “phenomenally inhuman and unconstitutional” voting record.
When describing Obama's voting record, "phenomenally" is always going to be an odd word choice unless it is followed by "risk-averse and thin." Allowing my skeptical assessment of Penn's skill as a political commentator to remain unchanged.
Penn continues on Obama:
”I hope that he will understand if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn't become a greater man than he will ever be.”
Ok, that's a bit overstated, but wise nonetheless. Although the clever word play suggests Penn meant to say something else but misspoke.
Later, when faced with Cannes' stunning display of materialism and celebrity worship, Penn bravely led a revolt against the film festival's smoking ban by lighting up and encouraging others to do the same.
So there you go, political candidate seeking the much-coveted Sean Penn endorsement, let him smoke in other peoples' faces and he will probably refrain from bashing you when he speaks to the foreign press.
This is from Barack Obama's speech after his resounding primary victory in North Carolina over Hillary Clinton -- a speech in which he rewarded the state's voters by speaking in a Southern accent.
There has been a lot of focus lately on who stands behind the candidate during televised events, and I think everybody now knows it's no random collection, nor does it necessarily represent the demographics of the folks who have been supporting the candidate.
Despite his big NC win, Obama continues to struggle badly with rural and downscale white voters, and will need to increase his support among those groups to be able to win in November.
Coming from my elitist's perch, when I hear words such as "rural" and "downscale" and "white" and "North Carolina" I hear the sounds of dueling banjos.
So yeah, if you got asked to stand behind Obama during his victory speech in Raleigh it's because somebody thinks you either look like you could be a toothless, backwoods sodomizer of wayward white-water rafters, or you look like you could be kin to a toothless backwoods sodomizer of wayward white-water rafters.
First Obama threw his grandmother under the bus, and then Reverend Wright threw Obama under the bus, and today Obama has thrown Reverend Wright under the bus, and I'm still waiting for when Obama's grandmother gets to throw someone under the bus.
While the phrase "getting thrown under the bus" and its variations go back at least to 1984 (according to my limited internet search methods), there is no question it cemented itself into the lexicon with the antics of spoilt wide receiver Terrell Owens, and his habit of publically doing his QBs in.
What this means, I'm not quite sure. But if Obama shuts off traditional media access -- and all indications are he would like to -- and instead choses to address the press while doing sit ups in his driveway . . .
After six weeks of polling and in-depth analysis the likes of which a Pennsylvania primary has never seen, we can finally say with a high degree of certainty that tonight one of these five scenarios will go down:
Obama wins. After crying for the camera, Hillary pummels now secret adviser Mark Penn with a hard cover copy of "Microtrends" A red-faced Bill Clinton thrusts his pointed finger at a group of reporters. Somebody loses an eye.
Clinton wins by between zero and five. Obama "brushes" it off by telling supporters not to worry because it "ain't no thing." Television executives from Charlotte to Terre Haute to Portland wonder if such a margin will allow for the campaign to continue long enough to finance their new kitchens.
Clinton wins by between five and ten. Looking towards Indiana, Hillary gets lost in an analogy comparing herself to Notre Dame football underdog "Rudy" Ruettiger and claims she once played halfback for the Fighting Irish. She then takes a swig from a handle of Jack Daniels and shoots a 12-point buck.
Clinton wins by between ten and fifteen. Veteran right-wing TV pundit Pat Buchanan refers to Hillary Clinton as "one tough gal." College campuses everywhere erupt in angry blogging. From his well air-conditioned straight talk bus, John McCain rubs his hands together and thinks about White House drapes.
Clinton wins by more than fifteen. Howard Dean tries to scream, but no sound comes out. Obama dismisses elections as "the kind of old politics which have made our nation cynical." From his well air-conditioned Tennessee mansion, Al Gore rubs his hands together and thinks about White House drapes.
Sure he's calling Barack Obama a once a in lifetime leader today. But if Hillary manages to wrestle the nomination away, a clean shaven Bill Richardson is going to be all like "yeah, so I don't know who that Ron-Silver-looking guy was either."
In case you are still wondering what was going on last weekend with Paris Hilton and the orange robed, gray bearded "Buddhist" she was following around -- and why wouldn't you be? -- I think I have uncovered the definitive answer and it is sort of horrifying.
According to the USA Today, the whole thing was a hoax set up by Ashton Kutcher of Punk'd fame. Only the joke wasn't on Paris; instead it was a part of his new show called Pop Fiction, in which celebrities team up with Kutcher to target paparazzi and gullible media outlets.
The London tabloids, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and TMZ.com all took the bait on the heiress and the guru episode. But what is really disturbing is a producer of Pop Fiction states there are currently about 20 celebrities in on the joke. Even more ominously this producer claims media outlets have already been duped into reporting other false stories.
Does this mean that Britney isn't crazy? And Anna Nicole Smith is alive somewhere in the Caribbean? And Barack Obama is a cyborg?
Picture of Kutcher's NBA doppelganger has nothing to do with the post, but funny nonetheless.
Media darling Barack Obama is finally catching heat -- and displaying thin skin -- over two mini-scandals; one involving a shady real estate deal with a shady character, and another his surrogate's assurance to the Canadian government that Obama's anti-NAFTA rhetoric was nothing more than meaningless campaign posturing.
The press may have turned up the heat on Obama just in time to help save the campaign of his rival, Hillary Clinton, who has racked up a pretty impressive 11 primary losing streak, and needs a good showing in tonight's contests if she is going to be able to continue her run for the nomination she was once so heavily favored for.
While Obama's kid glove treatment wasn't going to last forever, could it be that Saturday Night Live's much discussed sketch portraying the press as fawning Obama sycophants shamed the boys on the bus into speeding up their inevitable transition towards more traditional scrutiny of the freshmen Illinois Senator?
That is what a lot of people are going to say if Hillary Clinton comes away with primary wins in Texas and Ohio in a few hours. (For what little it is worth, I think that she will.)
This would mark the most buzz SNL has garnered since Chevy Chase fell down/Eddie Murphy jumped in a hot tube/Dana Carvey did the first George Bush -- pick whichever moment as long it was at least 15 years ago.
So what is SNL doing to help seal this potential return to relevance? Surprisingly, not by making the clip in question -- the one Hillary Clinton went so far as to awkwardly bring up in the last debate -- available on Youtube.
So SNL may well help nudge Hillary Clinton along to a legendary comeback, but it is doing itself no favors concerning its own return to glory.
And candidate who does this:
Of course, the most famous photograph of this particular week has come from the third guy in the mix:
It's a good thing his father left him in America, because it's hard to believe anyone would be fainting at an Obama speach if Barack was wearing his ancestral garb.
Because presidential elections are held every four years and there have only been 55 in our nation's history, one can find all sorts of trends of who gets elected how that aren't particularly statistically significant.
In that spirit, I've learned of two such trends concerning the physical attributes of presidents.
The first is a surprising trend towards left-handedness. The election of George W. Bush -- who was beaten in the popular vote by lefty Al Gore -- broke up a string of four straight southpaw presidents. With John McCain and Barack Obama both being lefties when it comes to their hands, there is an extremely good chance we will soon be five for six. What makes this streak noteworthy is only 12 percent of the United States population is left-handed, and, before Gerald Ford, there had only been two left-handed presidents in US history.
Could this be a function the television age? Maybe lefty candidates look smoother than right handed ones -- just like a left-handed baseball player or golfer is often perceived to have a "sweet swing." It seems a stretch, but why not? The phenomenon needs to be explained somehow.
A trend that long pre-dates moving pictures is that of presidential eye-color: 38 of our 43 presidents have had green, blue or grey eyes. Of the five dark-eyed presidents only Richard Nixon -- the last one-- was elected to a second term, and we all know how that turned out. In contrast to the men who hold the highest office in the land, only 16% of the US population has light eyes. While this low percentage is a reflection of shifting ethnic demographics, it was still only at 30 in 1950, and was probably never higher than 50.
President Barack Obama would break up the longest and starkest streak in presidential appearances but, running against a left-hander with blue eyes, he will have his work cut out for him.
Barack Obama's caucus win in lily-white Iowa was hailed by some as a historic next step into America's post-racial future. There may be an element of truth to this conclusion, but both Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's campaigns have spent the past week making sure the American public knows that not only is race still very relevant, it's what to talk about when asking for votes.
While it's true the two candidates have tried hard to play down the racial rhetoric themselves, their surrogates and an eager press have managed to whip everything from LBJ's legislative history to Sidney Poitier's performance in "Look Who's Coming to Dinner" to fairy tales into a referendum on black and white in America. As a primary showdown in South Carolina looms, one can only imagine what else will be sucked into this vortex of racial bad feelings.
And then what happens when Clinton and Obama move on to California to court Hispanics, the pesky third race which could ultimately decide the Democratic primary?
The only reprieve to this barrage of racial baggage might be if the tone of the campaign shifted more towards gender grievances. It could be a Clinton spokesperson signaled a move in this direction when he expressed "shock" that Obama's campaign was using "99 Problems" as one of its theme songs. In the 2003 hit Jay-Z raps about having "99 problems, but a bitch (possibly a not-so sly reference to Hillary's womanly demenor) ain't one."
Only with practically no policy difference between the two candidates -- Hillary says 70 billion for economic stimulus, so Barack says 75 -- there is plenty of room for both racial and gender animosity in the debate. And the Democratic Parties attempt to transcend race in their primary is the Idle Threat of the Week for January 7th to 13th.
Fans of the racial theater can only lament that master actor Rudy Giuliani isn't somehow more involved.
After being blindly hypnotized by it for the better part of a week, the much-maligned pundits are beginning to question Barack Obama's uplifting message of "change." As in what does "change" really mean.
Is "change" that thing which happens each time one moment turns into the next? Or is "change" something bold and transcendent --like what would happen if you put RFK, a bunch of chanting college students, and the hopes and dreams of every last soul on planet earth into a blender, and then baked the savory mix in a flour-based crust for 40 to 50 minutes before serving it to a hungry American electorate as 21st century apple pie.
So far nobody knows the answer. But we just learned this: If you pair "rocks" after "change" what you have is clear cut copyright infringement. Or so says the lawyer for a 19-year old Scarsdale teen.
Stefan Doyno trademarked the phrase "Change Rocks" three years ago as a way to market his invention of rings with interchangeable stones. Last month Doyno was "shocked" to learn the Obama campaign was using "Change Rocks" in promotional material for a rock concert/fundraiser they were holding in Chicago.
So far the Obama team has not responded to Doyno's lawyer directly, but suggested to reporters that they would not use "Change Rocks" on any of their printed material.
A move that could very well save Obama from the kind of ridicule that could sink even the strongest campaign.
