That Man Is Back
I knew Barack Obama hadn’t gone far, yet I was still surprised to pass through the living room and find him on the TV, giving one of his unbelievably boring speeches at the University of Illinois.
I knew Barack Obama hadn’t gone far, yet I was still surprised to pass through the living room and find him on the TV, giving one of his unbelievably boring speeches at the University of Illinois.
My problem with him as a public speaker isn’t just the usual moronic talking points one has come to expect of progressives, it’s the way he speaks. It’s his voice. It sounds as if he regards himself as both the fount of all wisdom and as the epitome of cool, which I’m sure is exactly the way he sees himself.
The excuse for his speaking at the university is that he is gearing up to campaign for Democratic candidates this fall.
Speaking as one who is praying that Trump will wind up with more Republicans supporting his agenda in Congress, I hope that Obama remains as politically persuasive in 2018 as he did in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016, when the candidates for whom he campaigned the most all lost. In fact, it was thanks to him that the Democrats went from holding huge majorities in both houses of Congress to being the minority party. It’s also worth noting that of all the presidents who have ever won second terms, Obama was the first to receive fewer votes the second time around.
At the supermarket today, I saw a punky kid wearing a t-shirt carrying the Nike slogan “Just Do It.” I almost did, but, unfortunately, his mother was watching.
I’d like to know why it is that Harvey Weinstein, who was arrested back in May, is still walking around loose.
I was wondering the same thing about CBS’s CEO Leslie Moonves, who was not only still hanging on at the network weeks after he’d been outed as a sexual predator but was apparently negotiating a $100 million severance package. What, I wondered, ever happened to “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” or “Don’t let the swinging door hit you in the fanny”?
Other people, including Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken, all got booted out the door with barely enough time to zip up, but a shmuck like Moonves was looking to drive off in a Brinks truck.
Fortunately, over the past weekend, a few more women came forward to report that he had not only demanded sexual favors over the years but took professional revenge on those who didn’t capitulate. That did the trick and the CBS board of directors decided they had to cut him loose.
But the last I heard, he was still holding out for the $100 million.
Speaking of millions of dollars going into the wrong pockets, we have Nike deciding to pay Colin Kaepernick a pot load of gelt to sell their overpriced shoes. Their signature line about believing in something even if it means sacrificing everything is hokey enough to make grown men puke, especially when it’s attached to a has-been whose career was already in the toilet when he became the poster boy for every anti-American bozo in the NFL. But it took on added impact when the line went viral over a photo of a military cemetery. Colin Kaepernick sacrificed everything? Anything? Not even close.
The sleazy Democrats on the judicial committee who sat in judgment of Brett Kavanaugh should be ashamed of themselves. It is reminiscent of the days when Ted Kennedy dared sit in judgment of Clarence Thomas, setting a record for unabashed chutzpah that might never be challenged; not even by Cory Booker. Here was a sleazebag who not only got a young woman drunk and then left her to drown while he and his family’s stooges figured out how to salvage his political career, but spent decades sexually harassing every woman that he and his overactive libido came across, daring to accuse Mr. Thomas of harassing the deceitful Anita Hill.
Furthermore, it was laughable for committee members Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, to whine about not having the time to read millions of pages of Judge Kavanaugh’s rulings, especially when the Democrats passed Obamacare without reading even page one of its 2,000 pages.
I can only hope that there were enough so-called Independent voters tuned in to the proceedings to make a difference in November. If they still hadn’t made up their minds about which party to support, I would hope that the display of boorish behavior by the Democrats would have swayed them.
But perhaps I’m clutching for miracles if these folks hadn’t already had enough of the goons with their call for open borders, sanctuary cities, an end to ICE and their open contempt for jurists who take their marching orders from the Constitution and not from the New York Times.
Speaking of the Kavanaugh hearings, I had been wondering what the price of disrupting them would be for the left-wing louts who had to be dragged kicking and screaming from the Senate conference room.
Fortunately, one of my always helpful subscribers, Jan Hooper, was able to let me know that the fine was $50. I was amazed. That’s the fine for jaywalking. I suspect that once the word gets out, the louts will descend like locusts on Senate hearings. Why wouldn’t they be willing to pay $50 to have all their dumb friends see them acting up on TV?
In this cockeyed world, it might serve as an audition and they might even wind up hosting their own shows on MSNBC.
I received an email from a reader who has often let me know how little he thinks of show business celebrities. In general, I agreed with him, but mentioned that I knew a number of exceptions to the rule.
On the other hand, considering how many years I have been involved in show business, I have only liked and respected a fairly small number. They would be Oscar Levant, Harry Ruby, Jamie Farr, Dick Van Patten, Orson Bean, Joe Wambaugh, William Peter Blatty, Norman Lloyd, Don Galloway, Merrill Heatter, Richard Kaufman, Lizabeth Scott, Roger Price, Jack Webb and George Kennedy.
But I added that, at least up to a certain point, I can still enjoy a movie or a TV show without necessarily admiring the participants.
Another reader also had showbusiness on his mind when he wrote asking if his list of great entertainers matched my own. He had seven men and seven women on his list. They were Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jackie Gleason, Sammy Davis Jr., Dick Van Dyke, Al Jolson, Judy Garland, Julie Andrews, Lucille Ball, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, Carole Burnett and Ann Margret.
Not a bad list. Nearly half of his selections–Hope, Sinatra, Jolson, Garland, Day and Burnett–matched my own.
I substituted Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Ginger Rogers, Irene Dunne, Jack Benny, Cary Grant, Laurel & Hardy and Sid Caesar, for the others.
He then added Elvis Presley and Barbra Streisand. I didn’t.
