A Heaping Bowl of Scornflakes
Building upon my scorn for those who tell ridiculous self-serving lies because they’re biased against a given candidate, last night’s episode of “NightLine”, a show that has fallen into a death spiral since Koppel left and the odious right-wing apologist Terry Moran took over, sank to new depths last night with “Obama’s Personality Cult”.
As the title suggests, the show portrayed Barack Obama as a cult leader, and his supporters as glassy-eyed followers. I’ve excerpted the transcript, but you really need to see the clip to comprehend it’s totally insane glory. It sounded like your senile old grandpa ranting about The Beatles. Again.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Los Angeles Times reporter Joel Stein. “People are crying, rending their garments. It’s a cult. But it’s a fun cult.”
You have to see Joel Stein to believe him: he’s this stubbly guy from L.A., and he talks and looks like he’s done a dozen bong hits of Canada’s finest bud. He makes no sense at all, andsat there looking baked out of his mind babbling nonsense in the most obnoxious California accent since Jeff Spicolli. I’ll put on my tinfoil hat here and suggest that the guy was chosen specifically to make Obama’s supporters look like stoned hippies. “Rending their clothes”? Who fucking talks like that?
But those outside the Obama bubble are left scratching their heads. They just don’t get it.
To them, the crowds around Obama are as baffling as the “bobby-soxers” once were, screaming for Frank Sinatra while their parents worried, as Beatle-mania must have seemed to TV host Ed Sullivan and as teenage actress and singer Hannah Montana seems to countless parents today.
Like I said, your senile grandpa bitching about how The Beatles lost us Viet Nam. Also, gotta love the notion of parents “worried” about Hannah Montana, the squeaky-clean Disney star and daughter of Disney star/country singer Billy Ray Cyrus.
“I’m in the demographic where all of my friends are in love with Obama,” Stein said. “It’s like being a teenage girl in love with David Cassidy or Scott Baio. When we get together, we talk about how much we love him. ”
Stein, a columnist for the Times, has written about what he calls the “Cult of Obama.” His mom, a Clinton supporter, has been trying to de-program him.
That’s particularly awesome. Maybe Susie’s right about this dog whistle stuff: if you wanted to pick someone to scare the shit out of parents, it’s this glassy eyed stoner guy talking about this cult he belongs to and how he indentifies with teenage girls and nurtures a crush on Scott Baio whose Mom is trying to deprogram him (despite the fact that at 36 he probably doesn’t live with his mom). Then again, I hope that most people, when they consider even a presidential candidate they DON’T like, don’t picture the candidate DATING THEIR TEENAGED KIDS. But still it’s of a piece with the Clinton attacks as well: ludicrous charges and insinuations that are easily disproved and toppled, making the person leveling them look like a fool at best, a deliberate poltroon at worst.
And then the closing line, my absolute favorite:
At this point the bar is so high, even the believers are starting to doubt he can pull it off.
“We know we’re being fooled, but we kind of like it,” Stein said. “I was listening to Obama’s speech in my car and started to tear up. I can’t get off of this ride. It’s too good.”
Obama is drugs. I can’t stop taking Obama. Gimme another Obama!
Joel Stein jonesing for some of that super schweet Obama.
Nightline basically portrayed Obama as a snake-oil salesman/ televangelist, a classic smear meant to push back at his momentum, and probably a sign of the primitive guffawing bullshit attacks to come. Terry Moran closed with a snarky comment about “if Obama wins the presidency” that was telling in its understated contempt. I’m sorry: you don’t have to be an Obama fanatic to see that he’s head and shoulders above the Clinton campaign. Even Clinton’s supporters recognize that: that’s why they’re so angry and thrashing about right now. In comparison to McCain, who actually LOOKS like your senile old Grandpa, it’s simply no contest. I will be very surprised if Obama doesn’t win the general election.
That’s what I mean when I say that lying about the candidate in such a transparent and shallow fashion only makes me want to support him.
Idiots.
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