Variety’s Former Chief Weighs In On Obama’s First 100 Days: Boffo!

by Riley Hunter

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:

I wasn’t in Saigon before its fall or in Berlin before the Nazi clampdown, but I wonder if those cities were gripped by a similar sense of helplessness that afflicts Hollywood this week.  

Now, I’m no learned Variety editor-in-chief, but my guess would be ‘no’.  Reductio ad Hitlerum:  Nazis are the first resort of the lazy, enfeebled mind.  But it’s not mere stupidity (and lack of editorial oversight) that enables a comparison of a Hollywood labor dispute to Nazi Germany ─ it’s also an artificially elevated sense of self-importance coupled with debilitating myopia.  This is Peter Bart.  So in Bart’s boffo Obama article, we have the delightful phenomenon of one short-sighted, out-of-touch narcissist evaluating one of his own. 

Besides reading like the sort of uncritical, naive pablum one might find in a public high school newspaper op-ed piece, Bart’s meandering gobbledygook veers off-topic and (predictably) finds time to bemoan George W. Bush and FOX News.  As any astute Hollywood liberal who actually pays for a Variety subscription already knows, all of America’s problems are ultimately the fault of Bush and FOX (Nazis!!).

Some notable gems from the piece:

What has emerged from the 100 days is not confusion, but rather a clear presidential presence — one of focus and intelligence.

Actually, what has emerged is a community organizer in over his head who can’t pass gas without a cue from a teleprompter.  A “clear presidential presence” wouldn’t prance around the world to apologize for the American way of life to every crusty Euro and old world demagogue who’s willing to listen.  

And was it “focus” or “intelligence” that nominated a laughable succession of unqualified, unconfirmable, pedigreed rubes and cheats to cabinet positions without a basic vetting process?  

The Obama team has demonstrated it knows how to produce smartly staged European tours and how to meticulously manage the Obama Family Image, so that even adopting a new dog becomes a national obsession (will Mother’s Day and Father’s Day now be augmented by a Dog Day?).

Team Obama also demonstrated it can make its puppet bow down to a misogynist Saudi King; sit awkwardly while receiving an hour-long tongue lashing from Daniel Ortega; and meekly accept a book of anti-American propaganda from nominally-sane tyrant Hugo Chavez (who actually got something right when he previously called Obama a “poor ignoramus”).  

How’s this for “smartly staged” enlightened symbolism:  American citizens are scurrying in fear and horror of Air Force One while their commander-in-chief is making BFFs with a Who’s Who of oppressive, murderous, America-hating dictators.  That’s the kind of brilliant PR wizardry reserved for Chicago political machine flunkies and re-tread Clinton flacks.

I’m not sure why Bart mentioned the dog as an example of good PR, but I am sure I’ve been hanging in all the wrong circles because the “national obsession” with it completely passed me by.  The dog would have been an unassailable photo-op if His Glory actually rescued a needy animal.  But since elitists don’t deal in pound-dwelling mutts, Obama managed to piss off the animal advocate crowd by “rescuing” a purebred, pre-trained Portuguese water dog from Ted Kennedy’s personal breeder.  Among his many gifts, not only can this president manage to make Air Force One look bad, he can also villify a cute, fuzzy puppy. Not so boffo!

The presidential spinmeisters have shrewdly invited coverage from the likes of “Extra” and “Access Hollywood” and let US Magazine know that Michelle is a loyal reader while reserving for the New York Times the first glimpse of the White House vegetable garden.

So what if the stock market is tanking; the dollar is becoming the peso; the country’s credit is destroyed; the federal deficit is incomprehensible; spending is out of control; and the government is nationalizing  the banking and auto industries? We proles must rejoice because Michelle gave the New York Times a tour of her vegetable garden!

Though Nicholas Sarkosy never had a power lunch with George Clooney or served as a studio mouthpiece for a ceremonial industry newspaper, he had a much more informed, accurate and succinct evaluation of our president than Peter Bart:  “Unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated.”  

So to summarize Peter Bart’s new math: “national obsession” over Bo the dog + Michelle showing off her garden = boffo first 100 days!  The man is more out of touch with reality than his buddy Tom Cruise’s views on post-partum depression.  He’s had his nose up the Hollywood Establishment’s ass so long there’s only one thing he can smell these days and its not the coffee.  Peter Bart is the ultimate star fucker.  In Barack Obama, he’s found his ultimate star.


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Posted Apr 29th 2009 at 12:53 pm in Entertainment, Media Criticism | 55 Comments