Think back, if you are old enough, to the time when they showed a cartoon before the movies. Sure, Betty Boop had some creative horsepower behind it, but it was not what brought people into the theaters week after week. What the cartoons did was this: they shifted the boundaries of reality. Theater, including cinema, requires that the folks in the audience willingly suspend disbelief. For something like a cartoon, it is an easy sell, because they are comedic. Then, when the main feature comes on, the shift is toward a more real representation, and so, the feature movie is more emotionally engaging.Today, on Chris Matthews’ Hardball we see the proof of what I was saying.
Ms. Coulter is the Daffy Duck of political discourse. When she speaks, you shake your head and wonder if you really heard what you thought you heard. Then when someone on Faux News comes on and says, “we must fight the terrorists in Iraq, so we don’t fight them here,” it sounds like the voice of sweet reason. Compared to daffy Ann Coulter, it is so much easier to accept the talking head, who in this analogy might be compared to, say, Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds.
Why the War of the Worlds? Because some people believe it and do batshit crazy stuff.
Armstrong Williams was talking about Ann Coulter’s appearance yesterday on the show. For those who missed it, she was confronted by Elizabeth Edwards, who gently rebuked her for hateful speech. Ms. Coulter had alleged that John Edwards has a bumper sticker which says, “Ask me about my dead son.” As the mother of that deceased boy, Mrs. Edwards found it offensive.
Armstrong Williams, for those who missed it, used to be on the White House’s payroll as a propagandist, which is criminal. Chris Matthews asked Williams if thought it was “over the line” to attack the Edwards for having a bumper sticker that says, “Ask me about my dead son.” Armstrong said, “no.” Why? Because he believed the Edwards actually had such a bumper sticker.
That was my point when I said, “some people believe it and do batshit crazy stuff.” For those who missed it.
“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”
No comments:
Post a Comment