Tuesday, March 27, 2007

SO beside the point

Fussy, fussy:

Attention all hired political hucksters and hatchet men, dirty tricksters and campaign saboteurs. The Federal Election Commission has a message for you: Go forth online. Do your dirty works. Opportunity awaits.

Consider as a model the explosion last week of a YouTube video attacking Hillary Clinton as "Big Brother" from George Orwell's novel "1984." The 73-second spot, which was posted anonymously at no cost, has already been viewed 2.7 million times, scored coverage in every major newspaper and achieved frequent play on the cable news networks. In the world of political advertising, that kind of exposure is worth millions of dollars.


Pretty Lady says, hmph.

There is a difference, in her opinion, between Untrammelled Creative Commentary and Paid Advertising. Mr. de Vellis' hilarious little video did not receive attention because someone paid him to do it; it received attention because it resonated deep in the human psyche, as brilliant art is wont to do. Fussy people tend to forget this, if they were ever willing to admit it in the first place. Plus, what the article conspicuously fails to note is that the piece would have lost every bit of its impact if dear Mr. Obama were so discourteous as to have commissioned it himself. Pretty Lady's pet politician is, of course, above such things.

As far as Pretty Lady is concerned, as long as a creative artist is not actively spreading lies and disinformation, his obligations to Society have been adequately fufilled, and he may be permitted to create at will. If his creation happens to strike a note which reverberates through and through the space-time continuum, without the consent of the ruling Powers that Be, so much the better. It certainly happens rarely enough.

(Pretty Lady's person opinion on the Hillary Clinton issue is that she stopped paying attention to Hillary the day she read that first, pandering, patronizing little newspaper column on How To Bake Cookies and be a Good Wife and Mother. It was not that Pretty Lady is against these things; it is that Hillary was not even bothering to be subtle in her manipulation tactics. Pretty Lady felt exactly the same way about the rival for her First Love, who strode into the café one morning whining, "Rayyyyyy, we're going on a daaaaaate this weekend. I wanna make Scott jeaaaaaalous." If anybody is so foolish as to fall for that, he deserves what he gets.)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Pretty Lady felt exactly the same way about the rival for her First Love, who strode into the café one morning whining, "Rayyyyyy, we're going on a daaaaaate this weekend. I wanna make Scott jeaaaaaalous." If anybody is so foolish as to fall for that, he deserves what he gets."

Confused on this part. Was she painting a target on your man by unsubtly providing a false pretext for the encounter? Or was she genuinely trying to make her boyfriend jealous while simultaneously pissing you off? Or all of the above?

I tend to agree with Vox on this one. There is no way that anyone else could possibly win against her in 2008. I stated somewhere once that Hillary Clinton could be filmed, worldwide live on CNN throwing newborn living cute and fuzzy puppies into a reactor with the intent and purpose of converting their floppy ears and snuggly fur into nuclear waste and she still will carry the election with a landslide.

Chris Rywalt said...

Funny. I don't think Hillary or Obama have a hope of winning. I have no idea who can win, but I just don't think America is ready to elect a woman or a black man President. I suspect what will happen is what usually happens, which is the race for the nomination appears to be between A and B and then Z gets the nod, Z being whoever makes everyone fall asleep fastest. (Remember how quickly Howard Dean's candidacy evaporated?)

I'm not yet willing to bet on which party, even, is likely to win. Everyone seems to think the Republican ticket will be unelectable, but then a lot of people were surprised when George W. won not one, but TWO terms, when everyone could see he was a nincompoop.

Generally I think elections are won by the scariest alpha male, and so we'll see if Democrat Z is scarier than whoever the Republicans can dredge up. Giuliani is pretty scary, but as an Italian, he's a long shot, and probably won't get the nomination.

I'm guessing -- very lightly -- McCain vs. Edwards, with McCain just barely winning. But it's real early.

Pretty Lady said...

Confused on this part.Was she painting a target on your man by unsubtly providing a false pretext for the encounter? Or was she genuinely trying to make her boyfriend jealous while simultaneously pissing you off? Or all of the above?

Pretty Lady, by that point, had already conceded the man in question, not being the sort of lady who indulges in catfights with wholly inferior women. Once she discovered that her First Love was taking this woman seriously, she contemptuously stalked off, grinding the both of them under her heel.

No, the whining woman was, at that point, struggling to bring the sluggish man to heel; having been left a clear playing field by default, she found him insufficiently attentive. Ergo the overt co-opting of Ray, and anything else male in the vicinity. Myself, she regarded with something vacillating between sullen jealousy and stark terror.

That was the year that Pretty Lady discovered a latent talent for vicious, passive-aggressive cruelty which haunted her lo these many years, until she finally vanquished it.

Pretty Lady said...

Ah! I see why you were confused. Scott was the First Love in question. Ray was a hapless stander-by.

Anonymous said...

Generally I think elections are won by the scariest alpha male,

Howbeit then that Gore-zilla lost to Bush?

Anonymous said...

Gore? Alpha male? Alpha?

The first time anyone actually thought that Gore wasn't an android was when he tongue-kissed Tipper in what was one of the most uncomfortable moments in broadcast history, even eclipsing the Jackson/Presley kiss for it's sheer nauseating inappropriateness.

Actually, I found the Gore candidacy amusing, since I watched all these rockstar morons stump for Gore when less than ten years earlier they were calling Tipper the Antichrist for putting those little stickers on their album covers if their lyrics contained the word "fuck". Funny how Jann (Wenner) who had roundly excoriated the PMRC in Rolling Stone suddenly endorsed the Gore candidacy when it got the DNC nod. What a hypocritical wuss.

Gore is about as much of an alpha male as Nathan Lane. In fact, in a cage match fight I would bet on Lane just on the bitchiness factor, since he would scratch out Gore's eyes if he got in trouble and was about to get pinned.

Chris Rywalt said...

It did seem that almost everyone forgot who was across the table from Frank Zappa when he testified before Congress. Personally I didn't vote for Gore for just that reason, although the were plenty of other reasons, too. I voted for Nader, even though he didn't even know his own party's platform, which I found absolutely hilarious (the Green Party actually wanted to disband the Senate and establish a 100 percent tax on the wealthy).

I actually think the Gore/Bush election was that rare case where it didn't matter who we elected at all. I'm pretty sure Gore would've been nearly identical to Bush. I'm not sure Kerry/Bush was such a big choice either, but by that time I was so fed up with Bush I would've voted for Idi Amin if I thought he could've won. Or Cthulhu -- like the bumper sticker says, when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils....