Dandy New York Times op-ed columnist and alleged intellectual David Brooks took time out last week from admiring Barack Obama’s “perfectly creased pant” and bemoaning America’s disregard for his beloved educated elite class to explain the Mel Gibson mess in The Gospel of Mel Gibson. With all the pop-psychology gravitas of a Cosmopolitan sex advice column, Brooks declared Gibson the prototype narcissist, the “Valentino of all self-lovers:”

His self-love is his most precious possession. It is the holy center of all that is sacred and right. He is hypersensitive about anybody who might splatter or disregard his greatness. If someone treats him slightingly, he perceives that as a deliberate and heinous attack. If someone threatens his reputation, he regards this as an act of blasphemy. He feels justified in punishing the attacker for this moral outrage. And because he plays by different rules, and because so much is at stake, he can be uninhibited in response. Everyone gets angry when they feel their self-worth is threatened, but for the narcissist, revenge is a holy cause and a moral obligation, demanding overwhelming force.

Perhaps if Brooks weren’t so infatuated with that impeccable crease, he’d realize he just described the President.  Are all of the educated elite this dense?

“Narcissist” belongs to the “genius,” “love,” and “Nazi” category of words that have long ago lost their true meaning from overuse and misapplication (e.g., “I so love Obama because he’s like a genius who’s gonna fix all that stuff that dumb Nazi Bush messed up.”).  The prevailing view among clinical psychologists is that is that narcissistic personality disorder is rooted in self-loathing, not this precious self-love Brooks speaks of.  No matter.  Brooks’ educated elite class credentials give him the authority to use the term any way he wishes, and to diagnose Gibson based on a glimpse of the man at one of the lowest points in his life.  I wonder what penetrating insights Brooks could glean from the celebrated voicemails of Alec Baldwin and Pat O’Brien.  And was it self-love or love of underage sodomy that motivated Hollywood folk hero Roman Polanski? (more…)

Recently dethroned Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart, whose relevance as a Hollywood insider has been plummeting faster than Variety’s circulation numbers, last week published an article in his new capacity as “bitter old has-been who wont leave gracefully” “vice president and editorial director” extolling the glory of Obama’s first 100 days in office.  The gushing praise bestowed upon the president betrayed an article which may well have been partially typed with only one hand on the keyboard.

Bart characterized Obama’s first 100 days as “downright boffo,” immediately triggering in my head the question:  Which is more played-out and entirely unnecessary in Hollywood these days, the word “boffo” or Peter Bart?  

For those unfamiliar with Bart’s intellectual fortitude, let him paint the picture for you in his own words.  In June of last year, when the threat of a SAG strike loomed over Hollywood, he characterized the situation in his own particular, industry shill je ne sais quoi: (more…)

To the delight of California’s illegal aliens, socialists, unqualified minority job-seekers and militant bicyclers who blow up Hummer dealerships in the name of suffering polar bears, smarmy San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday he is running for governor in 2010.  Newsom chose San Francisco-based Twitter─the de facto, mandatory communication tool for hip celebs and gossipy high school girls─to officially reveal his plans.  Indeed, inexperienced, over-packaged, provincial narcissists with radical agendas, cocaine issues, elitism fetishes, an undeserved sense of entitlement and contempt for the American way of life aren’t just for the White House anymore.  California has found change it can believe in. 

At a time when reckless, lightweight, non-achieving ideologues are all the rage in American politics; when nary a meaningful accomplishment is needed to move up the political ladder; when substance takes a backseat to teleprompters and pedestrian, car salesman charms; Newsom is trying to parlay his overly-bleached smile, expensive suits and camera-ready prop wife (not pictured below) into the most visible governorship in the United States.   (more…)

Last week, while Barack Obama was busy apologizing for America and lauding the laughable hokum of “Europe’s leading role in the world” in front of qualified world leaders at the G20 summit, Michelle Obama was apparently charming the unmentionables off the marveling Euros with her alleged grace and beauty. The on-going media orgasm over the first couple reached an indecently sloppy crescendo in Europe as the groupthink fiction which now passes for mainstream news bizarrely acclaimed the Obamas the new American royalty.  

In a previous article, I lamented the Obama administration’s perverting of the English lexicon to further its cultural mythology.  The president’s media confederates lovingly disgorged some of this mythology last week under the guise of summit coverage.  (more…)

In an age when a waiter is a server, an actress is a female actor, and a dubiously-competent socialist cult leader is an American president, it was only a matter of time before the “Global War on Terror” became an “Overseas Contingency Operation” (OCO).  Thus Spoke Zarathustra this week via a memo sent to the Pentagon and select speech writers, officially establishing Team Obama’s redesigned terminology.  The War is over, long live the Operation! This should show the road-side bombers, suicide bombers, bombers-in-burqas, snipers-for-Allah, and other assorted, blood-thirsty, Jihadist savages that the US really means business now.  Victory through euphemism!

The unveiling of OCO capped-off a terror euphemism trifecta for the administration.  Previously, the Justice Department scrapped the ghastly “enemy combatant” to describe war prisoners in favor of the much more uplifting, “detainee.”  Additionally, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano─who may be the only member of the administration more intellectually troubled than Tim Geitner─rebranded terrorism as “man-caused disaster.” (To review:  mail carrier; police officer; business person; but man-caused disaster… maybe the errant sexism has something to do with Ms. Napolitano’s romantic leanings.)   (more…)

I occasionally like to poke around Salon.com for a healing dose of tolerance, inclusion and progressive enlightenment whenever my heathen conservative predilections get the better of me. Imagine my shock when browsing through some reader comments when I saw the sort of lowbrow discourse usually reserved for people who couldn’t get into Swarthmore or Brown and never drove a Saab: “go fuck yourself;” “you’re so full of shit;” “shut up idiot;” “get a fucking clue;” “screwball… crank;” “bitch;” “whore;” and the never encouraging, “cunt.”

What's it going to take to put you in some Hope & Change today?

What was happening here? A good-n-proper reaction to the obligatorily reviled Ann Coulter? Did Sarah Palin say something unacceptably state-schooly on TV again? Did an enemy trollette deposit some right-wing talking point in an otherwise high-minded and compassionate Salon discussion thread?  Alas, something much more catastrophic had occurred: one of the flock strayed and had to be punished.  (more…)

As Carson Daly demonstrates on a nightly basis, you don’t have to be funny, engaging or a good interviewer to have your own late-night talk show on NBC.  Jimmy Fallon continues that tradition, this week taking over the 12:30 time slot vacated by the newly-promoted Conan O’Brien. 

Though Monday’s inaugural  Late Night with Jimmy Fallon seemed serviceable on paper─featuring Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake and  Van Morrison─the jittery, sweaty, nervous and not-so-endearingly timid Fallon could not execute, making the show unbearable before the first guest ever appeared.  Of course, it’s not fair to judge Fallon based on the first show.  Keenan Ivory Wayans, Magic Johnson and Chevy Chase each had awkward late night debuts as well, and they lasted for several weeks.  (more…)

With his trademark look of severe yet not unwelcomed constipation, his trusty acoustic guitar in hand, working class diva Bruce Springsteen kicked off Barack Obama’s We Are One Inaugural Celebration concert at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18.  Indeed, Bruce had much to celebrate.  Just a week prior he scored himself a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for the film The Wrestler, beating out the worthy likes of 16-year-old Miley Cyrus and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover girl Beyonce Knowles.  Within the next two weeks, he’d be releasing a new album and headlining halftime festivities at Super Bowl XLIII.  Most importantly, on this grand day, he was performing in front of his latest favorite Democrat, helping to usher in a historic new era of something or other (I always forget the required tag line, I just know something is really historic). (more…)

Tuesday night I lost my way on AM radio and accidentally stepped into a steaming pile of Air America.  Preoccupied with traffic, my Bluetooth and a mango smoothie while driving home, I neglected to switch stations upon the conclusion of my beloved Phil Hendrie Show.  I realized trouble was afoot when I heard an unfamiliar voice mutter, “From eight years of an abomination, to eight years of an Obama nation.” Oi vey.

After the requisite Obama orgasm, the voice, belonging to show host Richard Greene, explained that this show was the West Coast launch of something called Hollywood Clout, a forum for Hollywood celebrities to use their influence on the radio to “celebrate the New America” (translation: to peddle the predicable, de rigueur political agenda of mainstream Hollywood). Finally! Where has this Richard Greene, this visionary pioneer, been all this time?! At last, refuge for displaced, left-leaning celebs to speak their mind! Free at last. Free at last… and so forth.  The inaugural celebrity of the inaugural West Coast show was announced as Daphne Zuniga, former Melrose Place tart and occasional Gavin Newsom plaything.  I switched to sports talk.

This was Air America, or whatever carrion remains these days following the October 2006 bankruptcy filing of the leftist radio network.  Like most people who were ever aware of Air America in the first place—and there weren’t many—I long ago forgot about its existence.   Evidently it’s back… or it never left… or whatever.  Following reorganization, downsizing and a change of ownership, from the ashes of Air America Radio has risen the glorious house fly of Air America Media. Now it’s Media, not Radio… Get it?

This second generation Air America has been moping around national airwaves for nearly two years, serving up programming piecemeal to its mish-mash of lowly, ratings-deprived affiliates (including Phil Hendrie’s new LA home, KTLK AM 1150).   I gathered from my brief, unintended exposure that the network’s new, image-defining buzzword is progressive.  This is not a network of bitter, enraged liberals prattling on about stolen elections and missing WMDs.  This is a network of empowered, high-minded progressives prattling on about stolen elections and missing WMDs. Same pig, different lipstick. (more…)