The English Patient (1996)

Director Anthony Minghella’s sweeping WWII romance ranked as #24 in my countdown of the greatest left-wing films of all time:

Filled with poetic dialogue, lush cinematography, some truly extraordinary scenes — such as the sandstorm sequence where Katharine and Laszlo fall in love — and  a charming subplot involving the short-lived but sincere romance between Binoche’s Canadian nurse and Kip (“Lost’s” Naveen Andrews), a brave Indian who defuses bombs, you almost will yourself  not to notice the film’s depraved and shockingly selfish philosophy. The film is seductive, though, and you want to give into it, but in the end the only moral outcome would be to have the cast of “Inglorious Basterds” storm in and beat Laszlo to death with a baseball bat.

If you don’t mind being manipulated by an ingeniously crafted and immoral piece of propaganda (and I don’t), another bonus is the look of the film (the cinematography won an Oscar), which is a jaw-dropper on Blu-ray.

—–

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Many will never forgive the fact that director John Madden’s fictionalized account of a passionate but ill-fated love affair between a young, struggling William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes)  and the beautiful young woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) who inspires some of his greatest work, beat out Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” for that year’s top Oscar prize.

This might be heresy, but I think the best film won.

Thanks to one of the best screenplays ever written, “Shakespeare In Love” is also one of the most original films to come out of the 1990s. Paltrow is luminous, and the supporting cast — which includes Tom Wilkinson, Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench (who along with Paltrow would win an Oscar for her work here), Simon Callow, and Ben Affleck — are all outstanding, thanks to their own talents and how well each character is individually defined. Some of story’s best moments come from the development of the Wilkinson and Affleck characters as Shakespeare’s talent and art overcomes their own personal agendas.

The story is at its most effective, though, in pushing the buttons a romance is supposed to push. You want this young couple to find a way be together, and you’re a little heartsick when you think about the possibility of them not making it.

Acted with great energy and humor and photographed in vibrant colors, this is an intelligent crowd-pleaser that looks gorgeous in high definition.

—–

Chicago (2002)

Director Rob Marshall pretty much revived (for a while, anyway) the musical genre with this age-old tale of murder and fame set in 1920s Chicago. Rene Zellweger might be the film’s star, but she’s completely blown off the screen by Catherine Zeta-Jones (who won a supporting Oscar) and a surprisingly game Richard Gere (who should’ve won a supporting Oscar).

The musical numbers are a little too choppy for my taste, and every one of them is staged as though it’s a finale, but the story is engaging and a few of the numbers are legitimate show-stoppers. Everyone’s obviously having a good time, and it’s more than a little infectious.

—–

Crash (2004)

There are all kinds of movies I dislike, ignore, dismiss and am even disgusted by. This is one of the rare titles I absolutely loath. This overwrought, melodramatic, piece of pretentious crap reeks of a left-wing superiority that emanates from the Hollywood Hills and looks down its oh-so-superior nose on the “little people” of Los Angeles. Sanctimony is its theme, superiority its muse, and smearing its goal. It’s an abomination of a film that reveals nothing about the good people of the Southland, who live and work and worship together in complete harmony, and everything about the self-serving elites who created and championed it.

My suggestion is that while you’re enjoying the other four Blu-rays, you use this one as a coaster for your Pabst Blue Ribbon.

—–

No Country For Old Men (2007)

An excerpt from my 2007 review, which, unfortunately, is no longer online:

The “country” in “No Country For Old Men” is a bleak, sun-bleached West Texas, not far from the Rio Grande circa 1980. Why 1980, is never explained. Maybe to get away with Chigurh’s haircut, a villain soon to become as iconic as Hannibal Lecter. But the barren landscapes, flares of dry lightning, and burgeoning towns just a few years away from being Applebee’d, perfectly symbolize a flat, hopeless, forbidding vastness offering nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from that thing that’s so spooked our Sheriff Bell.

The first one hundred minutes of “Old Men” are dynamite. The story is simply set up in act one with act two being its own symphony of unnerving tension as Chigurh and Moss play out their respective roles of unrelenting cat and crafty mouse. Nothing’s contrived to bring these two together and no superhuman acts are performed by either. All the action and suspense comes from entirely believable situations, which only adds to the unyielding tension as it becomes more and more clear Moss will never escape.

The only super power on display is that of the Coen brothers’ direction, the actors’ performances, the cinematography and editing. Each scene is ingenious in how it creates its own suspense, but also in how it builds on the knot tightening in your gut. The camera’s always in the right place, revealing a precise piece of information; even the removal of a pair of socks lifts your antennae. The editing is a work of art that utilizes timing, camera angles, and individual shots for maximum unease.

To the film’s further credit, just as no absurd coincidences or super human feats are contrived to move the plot, nobody does anything unrealistically stupid, either. It’s fascinating to watch the minds of Chigurh and Moss at work as each tries to get a step ahead of the other using whatever’s available to them. These aren’t MacGyvers turning paperclips into getaway cars; these are intelligent, very determined men thinking things through in a way we can relate to in their use of duct tape, wire hangers, phone bills, and compressed air to get what they want. …

The acting is first-rate, and in an era where lazy stars are continually caught coasting with lazy accents, everyone in “Old Men” hits it perfect. As I mentioned in my “Gone Baby Gone” review (another film with well-done accents), the key isn’t so much getting the accent perfect, the key is creating a believable accent that — and this is most important — the audience doesn’t notice. Even Scottish Kelly McDonald manages to convince and Woody Harrelson to not annoy. No small thing. One fine bit of casting is Tess Harper as Sheriff Bell’s wife. Her role here bookends beautifully with her memorable turn as Robert Duvall’s calming influence in “Tender Mercies.”

I close that review unsure about the film’s ending. At the time, I was dissatisfied that so much had been put into building up to a confrontation that never arrived.

In the five years since, that’s no longer a problem. This is one of the best films of the decade by a wide margin,, and repeated viewings only confirm that. The depth of the themes at work here make return visits even more satisfying, and the high-definition transfer of the landscapes, towns, light and shadow that the Coens shot so meticulously really come to life, as does a sound design that helps to immerse you into the landscape and feel every round fired.

There are some great films in this collection, but only one bona fide cinematic masterpiece, and this is it.

‘5 Bext Picture Collection’ is available today at Amazon.com.

1. “The Undefeated” packs a Chicago theatre:

“Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in OrangeCounty” was the headline at Atlantic.com. But as Christian Toto of the Washington Times has pointed out, this was based on the experience of a lone political blogger at a single midnight showing of the film, the story was picked up by politico.com and the Los Angeles Times. Not many political documentaries would clock well at the witching hour.

Other outlets have taken their potshots as well. Entertainment Weekly proclaimed, “Sarah Palin’s ‘The Undefeated’: We saw it so you don’t have to.” Huffington Post chimed in, “Box Office Bomb: Sarah Palin and the Failure of ‘The Undefeated.’”

But we aren’t talking Captain America or Harry Potter here. A conservative political documentary requires a different measure of success. And this indie underdog film has been scoring unexpected successes – and fans – in decidedly liberal places.

After a five-city expansion, the film made its Chicago debut Saturday to a packed house at the GeneSiskelFilmCenter. Yes, I said, “Chicago.”

2. Roger Ebert showed both Governor Palin and ”The Undefeated” respect in his review:

What astonished me is that the primary targets in the film are conservative Republicans. Yes, there are the usual vague references to liberals and elitists (although I heard the word “Democrat” only twice). But the film’s favorite bad guys seem to be in the GOP establishment. This seems odd, considering that the target audience is presumably Republicans.

Toward the end the right-wing tub-thumper Andrew Breitbart opens up with both barrels on establishment Republicans, and is particularly angry about conservatives in Washington, who he describes as eunuchs.

3. Member of Left-wing media declares “Caribou Barbie” narrative dead:

Sunday’s left-leaning Chicago Sun-Times led its story coverage with a post-film recap called, “Film Drives a Stake into ‘Caribou Barbie’ for one Dem.” The “one Dem” was Eddie Bryant, a retired 67-year old Union Pacific employee of African American-descent. “People say this lady is brainless,” said Bryant. “She’s not only smart, but she’s a clean-government person. I gained respect for her.” And Bryant’s not the only one.

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert, a passionate political liberal, called the film “A Documentary for Palin Lovers.” A powerful industry voice, Ebert could have maligned the film; he didn’t. If Hollywood hasn’t uttered a collective “wow” by now, it should. 

After years of Palin-bashing, these cracks in the mainstream media plaster would seem to be an anomaly. But they are not. Even last week’s Newsweek cover story on Palin had a kinder, gentler take on the former governor giving conservatives a serious case of whiplash.

Much more here, including an in-depth interview with the film’s writer/director.

For the final episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” taped Tuesday, the talk show queen appeared alone on her Chicago stage, talking to viewers about what they’ve meant to her during the show’s 25-year run. The finale will air on Wednesday.

Fans leaving Tuesday’s taping said Winfrey had tears in her eyes as the television icon said a final thank you.

“She said, ‘This isn’t goodbye. This is until we meet again,” said Amy Korin, 32, of Chicago, who was in the audience.

Winfrey then kissed and hugged her longtime partner, Stedman Graham, and made her way through the halls of Harpo Studios, saying goodbye to her staff, audience members said. She kept saying, “We did it! We did it!,” Korin said, and giving employees high-fives.

There was a single chair on the stage, but Winfrey stood most of the time, audience members said.

“A lot of crying and hugs, crying and hugs,” Korin said.

Audience members described a simply produced series finale filled with a sense of gratitude.

Full piece here.

Discuss below: Did Oprah Winfrey make a positive or negative impact on our culture?

One can only imagine the headlines were it so closely linked to a Republican President.

Illinois officials are taking a closer look at a nonprofit dance company that was awarded a $4.5 million state grant in 2003 for a planned performing arts center on the South Side that has yet to begin construction.

Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity spokeswoman Marcelyn Love, whose department hands out millions in grant money every year to arts and culture organizations, said the Muntu Dance Theater Co. of Chicago will be placed on “strict oversight” as they move forward with long-delayed plansto build an arts center at 47th Street and Greenwood Avenue in the city’s Kenwood neighborhood.

At issue is a 6 million dollar, if not more, vacant lot in Chicago.

A circular concrete barrier behind a tattered chain-link fence at the corner of 47th Street and Greenwood Avenue in the Kenwood neighborhood is all there is to show for once-ambitious plans to remake a struggling business corridor into a hub for African-American arts and culture.

Eight years ago, the nonprofit Muntu Dance Theatre secured more than $6 million in city and state grants, rights to the two-acre property for $1, and cash donations from the likes of ComEd and Boeing to build a $15 million performing arts center.

At the time, the project came with the blessings of local leaderswho hoped to not only turn around the fortunes of an area littered with liquor stores and boarded-up buildings, but help restore a piece of Bronzeville’s historic luster.

It’s interesting to note that Michelle Obama appears to now have enough time to plan school lunches for every child in America, yet, despite sitting on Mantu’s board for years didn’t seem to be able to find time to provide the least bit of oversight that may have prevented this problem. And that’s not all.

First Lady Michelle Obama served on Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago’s board prior to leaving the windy city.

Based upon financial disclosures in 2006, it was one of only four entities to which the Obamas gave money – five-thousand dollars to be exact. One has to wonder just how instrumental were the Obama’s in assisting the dance company in raising so much cash that seems to have been so poorly applied. That’s assuming it hasn’t simply disappeared, of course.

She even chaired their anniversary gala in 2007. But then, what’s $15 million dollars and a vacant lot in Chicago when one is busy tending the White House garden, or attempting to dictate what every American school child can, or can not eat? One can only imagine the play this story would have gotten had it been a Texas dance company linked so closely to George and Laura Bush.

Michelle Obama to chair Muntu Dance Theatre’s 35th anniversary gala

The new tough guys Li and Statham are in the movie along with extreme fighter Randy Couture and fake fighter Steve Austin. There are cameos by Willis and the Democrat Governor of California Schwarzenegger. All the action heroes are there…except my favorite, Chuck Norris!

My favorite Chuck Norris movie is the 1985 cop drama “Code of Silence.” “Delta Force” and “Missing in Action” have better action and more blowing up of stuff, but they lack something that “Code” had: me! I got my first chance to be in a major film when they shot “Code of Silence” in Chicago. I was cast as an extra and later got to be an uncredited cop in a scene with Mr. Norris. It was an awesome experience for a young comic. He was friendly and personable and chatted between takes with everybody.

The movie is a “Who’s Who” of Chicago actors some of whom have since hit the big time. Dennis Farina, John Mahoney, Lou Damiani and my occasional drinking buddy from back then, character actor tough guy Ron Dean. The movie also features one of the great all time movie bad guys, Henry Silva. The plot is simple, a good cop fights the Mafia, Colombian drug runners and the rest of the Chicago police force. Of course, Chuck wins. I hope that didn’t ruin the movie for anyone!

The thing I have always liked about Mr. Norris both then and now was his complete disregard for what “Hollywood” thought of his work. He wasn’t making movies for them he was making movies for me. Since he has “come out” politically I find he has the same attitude about his political detractors. 

So what’s up with that, Sly? Why no cameo for Chuck? As a right-wing nut job my first impulse is to think Chuck’s conservatism and support of Mike Huckabee in the 2008 election might have kept him off the cast list. I don’t have any evidence of that, but that never stops the Hollywood lefties from saying those kinds of things!

***

After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.

The proof that the N-word wasn’t said once, let alone 15 times, as Rep. Andre Carson claimed, is that soon thereafter — even though the press dutifully reported it as truth — Nancy Pelosi followed the alleged hate fest, which allegedly included someone spitting, by walking through the crowd with a gavel in hand and a shit-eating grin on her face. Had the incidents reported by the Congressional Black Caucus actually occurred the Capitol Police would have been negligent to allow the least popular person to that crowd – the Speaker – to put herself in harm’s way.

That crowd was a sea of new-media equipment. Not only were tens of thousands people armed with handicams, BlackBerrys and iPods, so also was the mainstream media there, covering every inch of the event. Why did not one mainstream media outlet raise the specter that perhaps a video would exist to prove the events occurred? I am still dealing with the same press telling me we didn’t prove that ACORN was aiding and abetting criminal activity because we “did not provide enough audio and video evidence.” (Insert laugh track.) Is there not a blatant double standard at play here? Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand that race was a central part of her strategy. She invoked the Civil Rights Act and compared it with the universally reviled health care bill. Her caucus is doubling down on the civil-rights rhetoric. There are no coincidences.

Linking the health-care bill, which has nothing to do with black and white, to the divisive civil-rights period, while simultaneously accusing its opponents of being racist, is an evil strategy — literally. Charles Manson would approve.

The Democratic Party is trying to signal to the black community and to progressive media types that the way to push back against the Tea Party and Republicans is to use the reliable race card by provoking a racial incident. The ensuing rhetoric about the bill and about the nature of the Tea Party is based upon repeated talking points. Propaganda. Everyone is on message that Republicans and Tea Partiers are racist — a divisive and dangerous argument, so lacking in any shred of evidence save for the fact that the majority in the Tea Party, as in America itself, is white. This is Duke lacrosse politics at its worst.

Those in the movement who are Hispanic or black are given the Clarence Thomas treatment: mocked, ridiculed and marginalized. The Democratic party cannot afford for minority groups to break from the pack, so they show that apostasy is met with high-grade ridicule. Those willing to withstand vile and hateful un-American taunts are some of America’s greatest patriots.

The press went straight to petrified Republican leaders like John Boehner and Michael Steele over the falsified “N-word” allegations, who dutifully offered apologies that they were not qualified to give. It was a set-up.

I smelled a rat so I offered at first $10k five days after the highly publicized alleged incidents happened. How could we be five full news cycles into this major controversy and not have any evidence? In fact, the existing footage showed the Congressional Black Caucus walking and never once moving their heads toward any “racist outbursts.” Is it conceivable that all of them stoically walked by the N-word as it was hurled 15 times — as they were holding up cameras to convey they were suspicious of the crowd to begin with?

We are now two weeks since the bill was signed and the $10k reward jumped to $20k in a day after it was mentioned on both Hannity and O’Reilly. At the Searchlight Tea Party event last weekend I upped the ante to $100k. So where’s the evidence? Ken Vogel of Politico covered this story and said calls to Rep. John Lewis — one of the originator’s of the N-word storyline – were never returned.

Nancy Pelosi did a great disservice to a great civil rights icon by thrusting him out there to perform this mischievous task. His reputation is now on the line as a result of her desperation to take down the Tea Party movement.

We’ve called their bluff. And they have tried to back off. They realize that this race warfare can backfire, just as it did with the railroaded Duke lacrosse players, as it did with professor Madonna Constantine and her faked noose incident at Columbia and the Sergeant Crowley boner by Barack Obama who stupidly said the white police officer had behaved “stupidly” in handcuffing Skip Gates.

The first Alinsky president is now using surrogates to split this nation into two hostile parties so he can puppeteer the have-nots against the perceived haves. The non-response to my $100k challenge is a tacit acknowledgement that the Congressional Black Caucus and Barack Obama don’t have the stomach for doubling down.

The other part of the strategy that is built into the N-Word Capitol Hill Walk is the strategy to incite. The media is doing their job for them by speaking of an unhinged white Tea Party mob. Absent any evidence other than creatively selected hand-crafted signs from the fringe of the audience that are presented to represent the whole, the media is simply repeating assumptions that Democrats and media elites have against fly-over types. What we have here is hardcore media elitism mixed with politically correct class warfare.

The Searchlight Nevada Tea Party is the Rosetta Stone of the Democratic Party strategy. Tea Party protesters were not going to Sen. Harry Reid’s office building to threaten individuals, Democratic-style: “No Justice, No Peace!” They went to the middle of nowhere, a place akin to the moon landing site, to talk up the constitution, the founding documents and to express their dismay with the current political class. The real astroturf, the bought-and-paid-for, union-thug support network that does the heavy lifting and the bone breaking, traveled to Searchlight to incite a fight. Video captured by my film crew caught Harry-Reid-placard-holding, t-shirt-wearing appartchiks, not just misdirecting traffic down the wrong highway but also, when confronted over that hostile act, throwing a dozen eggs at the passing Tea Party Express bus.

The usual suspects of Democratic Party apologists, like John Podesta’s Media Matters, were quick to diminish the events. Eric Boehlert dubbed my report “the Phantom Egg,” calling into question my veracity. But on tape a day later we were able to prove that the Harry Reid supporters were not just the ones who’d misdirected traffic, they were also the ones who threw the eggs, just as they were also the ones who called the police to report that I was the egg thrower and the instigator. Classic Alinsky. Accuse those of the acts that you are doing. It usually works. But in this day and age of new media and hyper-media, the tape, or lack thereof, usually tells the tale.

The race baiting of the Tea Party crowd on the Capitol front was caught by calling the Democrats out — and they didn’t deliver the goods. The attempt to incite a reaction from the Nevada Tea Party was even worse. They were the violent ones, who traveled out of their way to provoke an incident — and when they didn’t get it, they blamed the victim.

IT’S ON TAPE. And the person lying on camera to the police is the field director of the Nevada Democratic Party.

Over at Media Matters, Podesta’s den of deceit, the phantom egg has turned into Breitbart mockery over easter eggs. Change the subject, misdirection, their side caught with their pants around their ankles, don’t look there media, there’s nothing to see here.

Alinsky.

The Democrats need to kill the Tea Party movement. They need to marginalize and demonize those who would stand up to their hardball, toxic and anti-democratic tactics. Their strategy is to bait and incite the Tea Party and to use whatever they can get to silence the awakening giant. They have failed, epically, and the American people now see these tactics for what they are. At long last, new people every day are beginning to understand the kinds of people we are dealing with here.

Will the media keep falling into the trap? Their business model continues to fail each and every time they are suckered – unless, of course, they are doing it on purpose. The Republican Party failed in its attempt to make good with the Tea Party when its leaders apologized for it. When will the GOP stop playing Charlie Brown to the media’s Lucy? The Democratic party has been exposed as trying to create a Kristallnacht to save the Obama presidency along the fault line of race and the essence of the First Amendment. If the GOP does not have the intestinal fortitude to fight back, a growing number of disenchanted and disenfrachised Tea Party participants will have to do it themselves.

Who is calling the shots here? Is it the White House, by way of Chicago? Or is it Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? The press refused to tell you the truth about this president. It refused to tell you of his proud adherence to the teachings of the original Chicago “community organizer” Saul Alinsky. We have now entered the first full-fledged Alinsky presidency. The only way to beat Alinsky is with Alinsky. The Democrats and President Obama will not give up this tack. Do you think the GOP will win the day in November and in 2012 if its strategy is to apologize for every manufactured “right wing fringe” outrage?

With President Obama over the last week calling attention to the Tea Parties and their “heated” rhetoric, he has officially connected himself to the civil war his minions have flailingly attempted to inflame. The only good thing to come of this is that we can now officially put to rest the laughable notion that Obama was going to be the first post-racial president.

During his campaign for the White House President Obama said, “We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there… I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan.”

He promised to send another ten to fifteen thousand troops to help those already there. He also declared that the war in Afghanistan was the proper front in the war against terror. Now that he is Commander-in-Chief, his vision seems to be less clear.

The military commanders gave the President four troop deployment options earlier this week but he refused all four. Not for military reasons but because of some hooey about the corruption of the government in Kabul and their inability to run a fair election. Mr. President, if our support for governments was based on whether they are corrupt or not and could run a fair election, we would have pulled federal funding from Chicago years ago. The problem with pulling out of Afghanistan, or Chicago for that matter, is that they would fall into violent anarchy. We have already seen that happen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Current thinking on what to do in Afghanistan is based on two faulty assumptions:

The first is that wars are clear and concise events with specific outcomes and easy to find exit points. When John McCain told us the truth about how long we might be in Iraq, we didn’t want to hear it. We have been in Japan and Germany for over sixty years and in the Philippines for much longer. I wonder if back during the Spanish- American War leftist were telling the President that the Philippines were tribal islands and would never be able to be organized into a stable democratic government?

The second faulty assumption is that if we walk away from Afghanistan, simply pull all of our troops out, the war it then over. How long would it be before the Taliban was running things again and Al Qaeda was using it as a base of operations?  We will be fighting the same people again in the future, perhaps armed with nuclear weapons from Iran or Pakistan. Our national attention span has shortened to Twitter-like dimensions while our enemies think in terms of centuries.

The real problem for President Obama is that is if he deploys more troops and commits to staying, Afghanistan is no longer Bush’s war but his. Not even a year into his term and he is already worried about his legacy rather than doing what is best for the country. He is worried that his presidency will get bogged down in the battle for liberty instead of being able to focus on strengthening ACORN and the SEIU.

The left doesn’t mind waging long, costly, and non-winnable wars, so long as they are they start them themselves. Look at the war on poverty and the war on drugs. Our cities are littered with the lives ruined by those wars. We have thrown enough money into those two rat holes to finance Iraq and Afghanistan for the next fifty years and toss in twenty years of free government health care to boot. Do we have an exit strategy from the Welfare State, Mr. President?

For instance, when Barack Obama threw Rev. Jeremiah Wright “under the bus” a month after he was praised lustily by the media for not having done so in his famous “race” speech, the history of that event was never rewritten. Similarly, the dramatic positive impact of the surge in Iraq never came close to altering the media’s premature conclusion that the war there was a “disaster,” and the most recent data on the global temperature drop has done next to nothing to change the notion that the debate of global warming is “over.”

In the past week we have seen two classic examples of this quirk in the unwritten rules of media history.

The Obama/Oprah led flameout for Chicago’s hopes to host the 2016 Olympics certainly fits in this category. Much has already been said about the disastrous nature of this development from the economic and political perspectives. However, not nearly enough has been stated about how this event seems to prove that one of the basic foundations of the argument for Obama’s election was a complete lie.  

It was just over a year ago when Obama choose to go to Europe for his grandiose victory lap for having won the Democratic nomination. Hundreds of thousands (allegedly) of enlightened ones flocked to the streets to see and hear the new Messiah promise to bring the now hated United States of George Bush back into the good graces of the “civilized” world.

The message was clear. We elect Obama and the rest of the world will instantly love us again (as if they ever really loved us to begin with). The media hammered this point until even the people who literally couldn’t find Europe on a map (you know, the ones that actually decide elections in this country) understood how vitally important this was.

Well, based on what happened in Copenhagen, how in the world can anyone conclude anything other than that whole concept was just simply made up?

Never before in modern history had a U.S. President needlessly put so much prestige on the line in front of the world community and been so roundly rejected. The fact that Chicago didn’t even get out of the first round eliminates any real ambiguity about what was really happening here and exposed the theory that Obama’s election did anything to elevate our country in the eyes of the world as being completely bogus (keep in mind that all it took for golf to get in 2016 Olympics after a century long absence was for Tiger Woods to appear in front of the IOC via videotape; once again proving that Obama is no Tiger).

And yet, very little has been said that even questions whether we were lied to about this audacious promise. Instead, some have laughably tried to blame the Bush hangover for the embarrassment even though Chicago somehow made it successfully to the final stage while the evil one was still President.

This episode is reminiscent of the Cambridge police flap where Obama’s words and action totally destroyed the obviously phony narrative that our new President was a different kind of black leader and was going to be “post-racial.” The evidence could not be more overwhelming that we were lied to about this as well, and yet (due mostly to rampant media malpractice and conservative wimpiness) in the consciousness of the average American, that slam dunk case is still largely unproven

The other incident which followed this same pattern involved the revelation that David Letterman has apparently had numerous affairs with members of his staff.

This one is particularly personal for me because I somehow found myself at the forefront of the Fire David Letterman “movement” after his inappropriate “jokes” about Sarah Palin and her daughter. At the time, it seemed pretty clear to me that Letterman had “issues” and that the basis of his obsession with Palin and her family was obviously sexual. After all, Letterman had continuously referenced Palin’s attractiveness in a creepy sort of way and had even invited her on his show while urging her husband Todd to stay home.

But when I went on Fox News Channel to discuss this issue and referenced my theory, I was almost mocked by anchorwoman Megyn Kelly.

Now, based on these most recent disclosures, how can you conclude anything other than I was probably right? Heck, even Letterman himself seemed to back up this conclusion when he seemingly bizarrely (though in the context of my supposition perfectly understandable) “apologized” to Sarah Palin in the middle of begging for understanding from his fans and wife for his indiscretions.

This is on top of the numerous previous statements and “jokes” that Letterman had made about Palin just before and after his original “apology” was so eagerly accepted by the news media which cast great doubt about the sincerity of his efforts to make amends.

But has there ever been any reevaluation of what was really going on in the Letterman/Palin flap which, at the time, actually was outrageously a net gain for Dave? No. Instead much of the media focus has been on how Letterman is a “victim” of an extortion attempt as well as how strongly his fans appear to be backing him on this.

I realize that what is about to happen or what may occur in the future is far more exciting and ratings friendly than what has already occurred in even our very recent  past, but are our collective attention spans and memories really all so short that we can’t at least correct the record on these significant incidents?

Our side needs to understand the incredible importance of the narrative and when the facts allow us to win these skirmishes (even after they have seemingly been previously lost), we need to take advantage of that. Fortunately, based on recent history we will get plenty of similar opportunities in the future.

In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: President Obama, 2016 Olympics, Glenn Beck, Chicago, Dow Jones, Norman Hsu, New York Times, David Letterman, Sarah Palin, Dan Rather, Whoopi Goldberg, Hilary Duff, and Roman Polanski.