Category Archives: Media Criticism

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

The New Hollywood Blacklist

4 Comments

Here’s an interesting extended look at the secret lives of conservatives in tinsel town:

Zucker gave Farley the script and, concerned that Farley’s agent would advise him against accepting the role because of the film’s politics, told the actor not to show it to anyone. Farley, best known for his recurring role in a series of Hertz commercials, read the script and called back the next day to accept.

When he met Zucker and Sokoloff on the set as shooting on the film began, he told them that he, too, had long considered himself a conservative. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Sokoloff. “We were afraid that he would not want to be involved in something that was so directly taking on the left and that he would not want to play the Michael Moore character.”

Farley told me this story during a break in filming at the Daniel Webster Elementary School in Pasadena, last April, with Steve McEveety, the film’s producer, listening in.

“I thought that the minute we started talking about politics that would be the end,” Farley recalls. “There was this dance that we did–a dance familiar to conservative actors in Hollywood. Lots of actors have done it.”

“All three of you,” said McEveety.

“Yeah, all three of us.”

…On one of the days I was on set, McEveety had invited Vivendi Entertainment president Tom O’Malley to meet Zucker. Vivendi had just agreed to distribute the film and had promised wide release–news that had the cast and crew of An American Carol in particularly good spirits.

O’Malley and Zucker chatted about the fact that O’Malley is the nephew of Candid Camera’s Tom O’Malley and that they are both from the Midwest, among other things. Zucker thanked him for picking up the movie, which will be one of the first for Vivendi’s new distribution arm. O’Malley told Zucker that he was particularly interested in this film in part because he, too, leans right.

Such revelations are common occurrences at the periodic meetings of the secret society of Hollywood conservatives known as the “Friends of Abe.” The group, with no official membership list and no formal mission, has been meeting under the leadership of Gary Sinise (CSI New York, Forrest Gump) for four years. Zucker had spent a year working on a film with Christopher McDonald without learning anything about his politics. Shortly after the film wrapped, he ran into McDonald, best known as Shooter McGavin from Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore, at one of these informal meetings.

“It’s almost like people who are gay, show up at the baths and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were gay!’ ” Zucker says…

Let’s hope that they can come out of the closet some day.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Thuggery

3 Comments

Here’s the full story of how Sarah Palin was forced out of the anti-Ahmadinejad rally:

Make no mistake that this was an Obama op and that it was Obama operatives directing the screenplay. Upon news of Palin’s invitation, it was assured that the event would garner a higher level of attention than it already commanded. And the images and footage of Palin speaking in protest (popular protest, it should be added) of Iran and the messianic Ahmadinejad upon the backdrop of the common perception of Obama’s weakness in foreign policy and national security simply could not stand. Furthermore, it would have provided endless campaign fodder with Palin shown standing against the world’s foremost state sponsor of international terrorism amid the audio-visual bites of Obama stating he would hold talks with Iran without preconditions. The effects would potentially be more than just stinging.

It had to be derailed at all costs. And the first step in the mission was to characterize it as a politicized event. Getting Clinton to step away from the invitation was easy enough – her own vanity played against her as noted above. Having her spokesmen give a ‘politicizing’ reason for withdrawing from the rally planted the seed. And the trap was laid expertly.

All that remained was Palin and the media hyper-focus on her. If she remained, the meme of a ‘politicization’ of an otherwise honorable event would be hung around her neck – and Malcolm Hoenlein’s – like an albatross. Yet she refused to rescind her acceptance as Hillary Clinton had.

Here’s where it gets a bit dirty. The Obama campaign could not publicly cajole her to stay away, yet they needed her away. Desperately. So the pressure was then applied to Malcolm Hoenlein and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

Meryl Yourish is appropriately disgusted:

The thing that I hate the most about this? It won’t stop my liberal Jewish friends from voting Democrat in any way. It won’t even make them think twice about the tactics used by the Democrats. And it’s far, far worse than Soccer Dad wrote about the other day. CBS didn’t have the story about Jewish organizations having their tax-exempt status revoked for having Palin speak at the rally.

That’s not a political party pressuring groups to do something. That’s outright break-your-kneecap, Mafia-style blackmail threats.

In fact, those are precisely the kinds of tactics that the Jewish groups will be protesting on Monday. We just never expected them from the Democrats.

You should have. They’ve been doing it for decades. Many American Jews seem to have the same relationship with the Democrats as a woman with a wife beater that she keeps going back to.

And I wonder why the media lets them continue to promulgate the absurd notion that if Hillary! had attended by herself, it would have been non-partisan, but that if she shared the stage with Sarah, that would make it partisan.

Well, actually I don’t.

[Late morning update]

Speaking of thuggery, Iowahawk has the latest on the Obama voter outreach program.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Race Baiting

33 Comments

Limbaugh has had enough, and calls out Obama on it.

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

I’m sickened by the self righteousness and hypocrisy of the so-called compassionate left.

How long will it take for the rest of the country to see what a fraud this notion of Jerome Wright’s most famous long-time parishioner being a “post-racial” candidate is?

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Popular Culture

The Pixel Race

24 Comments

I’ve long thought that the resolution of most digital cameras has reached the point at which it’s overkill, and there are a lot of other improvements that the camera needs. Unfortunately, the marketing people at Canon don’t agree:

Canon engineers are being held back from developing new sensor technology by marketing departments in a “race for megapixels”, claims an employee of the Japanese photography company.

The employee told Tech Digest that Canon have the technology to “blow the competition away” in terms of image sensors, but are instead being asked to focus on headline figures like the number of megapixels a camera has. When asked for his opinion on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which we covered this morning, the employee said:

“I am hugely disappointed because once again Canon engineers are dictated by their marketing department and had to keep up with the megapixel race. They have the technology to blow the competition away by adapting the new 50D sensor tech in a full frame format and just easing off a little on the megapixels. Although no formal testing has been done on the new model yet, judging by the spec and technology used, it just seems to be as good or as bad as the competition – not beating them by a mile (which we used to).”

I’d rather have more speed and better S/N ratio myself.

There’s an amusing discussion of this, and the perennial war between marketing and engineering, including examples from Dilbert, over at Free Republic.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

There Are Lies

27 Comments

…damned lies, and campaign hyperbole:

…we’ve all heard the self-serving myth that pits helpless, meek, high-minded, issue-oriented Democrats against mendacious and mean Republicans, who not only detest America — especially children and small vulnerable creatures — but will lie and cheat to keep all oppressed.

The facts betray a more equitable story. And it starts with Sarah Palin’s assertion that she said “thanks, but no thanks” to the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” and opposed earmarks. This is an elastic political truth.

Technically, she did stop the project after initially supporting it. She has taken earmarks — even lobbied for them while mayor of Wasilla. As governor, though, Palin also vetoed over 300 wasteful projects and made an attempt to reform the process. Her record on earmarks is mixed, but by any measure, it’s far superior to either Democratic candidate.

Moreover, if this Palin claim can be classified as an untruth, Obama can be called a “liar” just as easily.

Take, if you will, the foundational assertion of Obama’s entire campaign that he is the candidate of post-partisan change. Obama, meanwhile, voted with fellow Democrats 96 percent of the time in Washington. And the bipartisan achievement he most often cites, an ethics reform bill, was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

Unanimous: “. . . being in complete harmony or accord.”

So, then, “Unity” should be referred to as a poetic truth.

And when much of the media acts as if it is personally offended by a questionable McCain ad accusing Obama of voting for a bill that would have provided sex education to kindergartners, you feel the pain. It was, indeed, a massive stretch.

It reminds me of the Obama ad that accuses McCain of having “voted to cut education funding” and “proposed” the abolishment of the Department of Education despite neither being true. Not much anger at that one. Just a lot of talk about the media’s responsibility to keep candidates honest. And absolutely, journalists have a responsibility to put every single candidate through the wringer.

Every candidate.

Something for the latest desperate anonymous moron that continues to drive by in comments with its pathetic shrieks of “Liar, liar!” to keep in mind.