I thought this was an interesting New York Times article, which basically tells us that, while the image of this country abroad has suffered mightily under President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, it seems that the rest of the world just can’t get enough of what gets churned out by the entertainment biz in the U.S., regardless of who’s in charge.
And I thought this excerpt was kind of funny, though perhaps inappropriately so…
Hilary Rosen, the former chairwoman of the Recording Industry Association of America, who was also present at the post-9/11 meetings, said that (Karl) Rove and other White House officials were looking for the kind of support Hollywood gave the United States during World War II.
“They wanted the music industry, the movie industry, the TV industry to produce propaganda,” she said. “Rove was putting a lot of pressure on us.”
I say “inappropriately” because of what had happened prior to that, of course, but when you realize how much of our corporate media (the Beltway “chattering classes” in particular) were totally “in the tank” for our ruling cabal of crooks, to the point where they were nothing but ciphers for Rove and company anyway…yeah, it’s kind of laughable (also considering how much conservatives routinely demonize Hollywood as some sort of hot bed of liberal subversion – oh, and by the way, I wonder if “An American Carol” is out on DVD yet? Any shot at turning a profit?).
Well, the answer seems plainly obvious, even to a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger such as yours truly; we need to turn our political-media culture (such as it is) into entertainment (aside from the low farce that it often is anyway, I mean).
And here are some ideas…
“GOP Survivor: Washington, D.C.” – Freshmen Republican U.S. House members gather at a “watering hole” in nearby Georgetown to plot, form alliances, and generally belittle each other in private interviews prior to participating in a series of competitions, with the winner to be awarded the position of House Minority Leader. Contestants must compete to see who can stand on perches mounted inside the Capitol rotunda for the longest period of time, conduct the longest interview on C-SPAN without a “bio break,” and see who can come up with the biggest list of pejorative words to describe the Democratic Party opposition (spoiler alert; no one wins because, at the end, the current minority leader, John Boehner, refuses to give up his position).
(Update 12/3/08: Just for the record, I messed up some things in that prior writeup that I fixed a few minutes ago.)
“The Harry And Mitch Variety Hour” – This week’s show features comedian Rush Limbaugh introducing a home video he made after popping too many OxyContin pills before flying down to Puerto Rico looking for hookers. Future episodes will include the song stylings of former Attorney General John “Lost An Election To A Dead Guy” Ashcroft, a re-enactment of his misadventure in the Minneapolis, MN airport men’s room with Larry Craig, and a film tribute of President-Almost-Gone George W. Bush and his most memorable malaprops. And as always, the show closes with the theme song “No, Harry,” describing all the ways Harry bargains, cajoles and occasionally sells his soul to pass legislation in the Senate, only to have Mitch defeat it in the end. Brought to you by Geritol.
“Barack!” – The creators of “CSI” bring us this cutting-edge drama starring the first African-American President of the United States, meeting with key Cabinet secretaries in the morning, flying out on Air Force One to resolve an international terrorist crisis – sometimes while brandishing an assault rifle or shoulder-fired rocket launcher – in the afternoon, and returning to our nation’s capital to resolve a family conflict in the evening (the “blaxploitation” genre lives again, with a healthy dose of the Huxtables and a dash of “The ‘A’ Team”).
And in this week’s episode, the Speaker of the House comes down with a case of “jungle fever.”
(Hey, compared to what most of the world thinks of us at this moment, how could this NOT be an improvement?)
Posted by doomsy 
The Liberal Doomsayer 