Here is what I mean.

Alan Moore and other comic artists joining together to support #OWS is no surprise, since the comic industry is as left as the rest of the entertainment world. The comic industry previously slammed the Tea Party (although the company and writer of this particular incident later apologized; you be the judge of whether they were sincere), attacked George. W. Bush, presented the U.S. and U.S. military as evil, made an entire celebrated series out of blaspheming God and Christianity (this review of said series is actually quite good even if I don’t entirely agree with it), and has generally churned out leftist propaganda.

I no longer am scandalized at what the comic industry is doing. I expect the behavior, and I don’t envision creators apologizing for it—just as I wouldn’t have expected either Alan Colmes or Eugene Robinson to apologize to Rick Santorum for what they said about the politician’s dead child.

Leftists have made no secret about who they are, and I see no reason why we shouldn’t simply wipe the dust of their town from our feet and stop throwing pearls to them in worthless attempts to change them.

Instead, I propose we fight back.

This isn’t to say we should stop what we currently are doing; we just need to add to it. We need to promote our own beliefs as well as call the left out on its own. Hence, my proposal for a conservative OWS project.

Our OWS writing and art initiative wouldn’t simply be a response to the comic book creators project in support of OWS. Instead, our project would also demonstrate a (partial) real-world solution for those affected by our economic woes. (And that partial real-world solution would be that the people who would join our project would be able to market and sell their artwork or stories on the OWS insurgency and thus generate income for themselves).

Furthermore, the stories and artwork for our project wouldn’t have to attack OWS or its insurgents, or even directly address the matter at all. For instance, while I have a short story planned that would address OWS, I also have another one planned that would have nothing to do with OWS yet still explore a common issue—moving upwards economically. In other words, I would encourage people to be creative and to be positive.

The left isn’t going to change who it is. Therefore, I no longer see a point in engaging leftists in argument or debate. We should simply move forward and promote who we are. I want other Big Hollywood contributors (as well as Big Government, Big Journalism, and Big Peace contributors) to come on board this project, but I also am considering opening this to the general public. Those who want to join or learn more about this idea should sound off in the comments section. If there is enough support, we will move forward with additional details.

In summary, he used his usual tactic of “divide and conquer” by setting “the people” against the “the rich,” which his ongoing attempt to place the blame for the Obama economy on the backs of Congressional Republicans and wealthy Americans.

Ironically, while trying to talk to “average Americans” (as if he were one of them), Obama didn’t mention the “undisclosed meeting” he’d held with some of Hollywood’s rich execs yesterday. The President didn’t mention that he’d asked those execs for “their help to engage the Hollywood community, in particular, and the general public at large.” Nor did he point out that his whole persona is so fake, so truly fraudulent, that he’s literally hoping these wealthy, influential Hollywood elites can “help [him] shape the national political conversation heading into a tough race in 2012.”

Note to President Obama: The conversation template is already set. That template is a discussion of your absolute failure as a president.

At a Los Angeles fundraiser on Tuesday night, Obama looked out at people who had paid $5,000 apiece to attend and said: “This campaign has never been about glitz and glory, or just the blind pursuit of power. [Rather,] we are determined to create a better future.” I’m sorry, but there’s not a Hollywood executive anywhere who can make such statements believable.

The industry already did what it could to help elect him in the first place, from celebrities bashing and berating Gov. Sarah Palin across media outlets to throwing massive fundraisers to line his campaign coffers.

Obama absolutely has to have more than three quarters of a billion dollars in those coffers if he’s to have any chance of destroying his Republican opponent. Even then, Obama has got to depend on Hollywood to rewrite the history of the last three years in such a way that those of us who’ve lived it, who’ve lost jobs, homes, and savings during it, will actually believe that this economy is Speaker Boehner’s fault (although he only became Speaker in 2011).

Or they have to make us believe that it’s President George W. Bush’s fault (although he left office in January 2009), or that it’s the fault of the rich (although Obama is shamelessly draining them of their wealth one new tax at a time).

Nope, this mess is Obama’s fault. And there’s nothing a group of Hollywood execs can do to make us love “hope and change” again.

It was not the public’s ambivalence to the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq that caused director Nick Broomfield to portray our soldiers as adrenalized murderers in “Battle for Haditha” or cinema legend Brian De Palma to do the same in “Redacted.” Nor is it a sudden focus on capitalism, as filmmaker Peter Berg suggests in the article, that is motivating Universal Studios suddenly to produce “Lone Survivor” four years after its publication. It is politics.

Numerous books have analyzed politics in Hollywood, including Ben Shapiro’s recent Primetime Propaganda: The True Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV. So, the fact that Hollywood is an unabashedly liberal community is no revelation. But filmmakers’ covert attempts to shift public opinion to the left needs to be understood better.

Berg explains that Hollywood now “supports these men” but fails to disclose that this is because our troops have a new boss. The equation is simple: When the commander-in-chief is a Republican, Hollywood sees him as a corporate stooge and jingoistic warmonger. But when he is a Democrat, he is a visionary and a reluctant hero.

Hollywood does not make films that celebrate American values and our men and women in uniform during GOP administrations. Those films could send the wrong message and stir public sentiment in favor of a disliked president. But trade in a Right-wing saber rattler for some hope and change, and suddenly a powerful propaganda machine positively portrays the country that today’s president leads. The new message: Feel good, America. We are noble, just like our cosmopolitan president. Let’s give him four more years and keep feeling great about ourselves.

Fast forward to the upcoming film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, which is slated for release in October 2012, just before the election. Some conservatives worry that the filmmakers — Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal — will spend more time praising President Obama for his “gutsy call” than they will on the heroes who tracked, found, and killed the late al-Qaeda chief. But those fears are unfounded.

Bigelow and Boal understand the firestorm that they would unleash. Instead, they are likely to create a genuinely great movie that makes our intelligence agencies and special forces look like gods among men. They may even throw George W. Bush a bone, which will make them look magnanimous and their critics seem small. It will be enough that the film will make people feel warm about the country and its leadership a few weeks before the election they vote. That’s their goal, and that’s the power that Hollywood has to influence our culture.

The real question isn’t: “Can Hollywood make a film that presents American values in a good light?” That’s not a problem. The question should be: “Would Hollywood produce it if their man wasn’t in the Oval Office?”

To answer that, just look at Boal’s own work. Far from celebrating the bravery of American soldiers, his 2007 screenplay for Paul Haggis’s “In the Valley of Elah,” portrayed American soldiers as murderous psychopaths who dismember one of their own. Back then, the cowboy from Texas was president.

As for Boal’s last collaboration with Bigelow, while “Hurt Locker” was released under Obama in June 2009 and widely applauded for portraying US GIs in an heroic light, the film was written and shot under Bush. As such it reflects — albeit subtly – Hollywood’s skepticism about Americans in uniform.

The film opens with the sentence “WAR IS A DRUG” and proceeds to show how the war in Iraq takes a toll on the main character, depriving him of love for his child, and creating in him a reckless junkie who puts his men in danger for his own sport. George Bush’s war does that to a man.

There was also the commanding officer who ordered his men to leave an Iraqi to die, and the few political statements were all decidedly in the liberal, “we make them terrorists” vein.

For those of us who love America, as well as the men and women who protect her, Hollywood’s new attitude will be refreshing, even if it is tainted by the certainty that one election can change everything for the worse.

For a more consistent way to see pro-American films made – one that is not dependent on who occupies the White House — more conservatives working need to work in the entertainment industry. We need more conservatives to learn the craft, create films, produce television, and sway the culture. For too long, conservatives have been only reactionary toward what Hollywood produces. We cannot leave America’s most powerful pulpit in the hands of the left.

It is clear that Corliss is not a fan of this flick, for sure. And he mixes metaphors and abuses sayings to beat the band to show his disdain. But it is his second, non-sequitur-filled paragraph that goes for Perry’s and W’s throats. Corliss features this attack prominently in the second paragraph of the review so that no one will miss it.

Portrait of George W. Bush?

Corliss describes how at the beginning of the movie a young Conan watches his entire family slaughtered in front of him. To Corliss, this seems somehow “kind of like” the way Saddam Hussein plotted to kill George W. Bush’s father, H.W. Bush.

As a boy (played by Leo Howard), he watches in horror while the ruthless warlord Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) humiliates and murders Conan’s father (Ron Perlman); it’s kind of like Saddam Hussein’s plot to assassinate George H.W. Bush, which supposedly led son W. to invade Iraq and chase down Saddam. Conan, though, grows up to be less like 43, the smiling tiger, and more like current Texas governor Rick Perry, with a compulsive appetite for red-meat rivalries. This barbarian has compiled an endless list of enemies and vows, as Perry did with Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, to make life pretty ugly for all of them.

Uh, sorry, Richie, it is not “kind of like” anything of the kind. In fact, it is just a left-wing trope that W. Bush invaded Iraq because he was trying to get even with Saddam for plotting to kill his daddy. There is no evidence at all of this nonsensical claim. W. laid out his reasons for going into Iraq pretty clearly through his discussions with the U.N. and the presentation that he had Secretary Colin Powell give. Revenge was nowhere in the mix.

Secondly, Governor Rick Perry did not “vow” to do anything to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. He may have issued a veiled slap at Bernanke as exhibiting un-American behavior, behavior that wouldn’t be looked on kindly by Texans, but he made no “vow” to do anything physical to Obama’s disastrous Fed Chairman.

But, what is this doing in a movie review, anyway? Conan the Barbarian has nothing whatever to do with politics. In fact, it is a storyline from so far back into pre-history that democracy and politics had yet to even become the sort of concepts that put a glimmer in mankind’s eye!

So, why is this non-sequitur paragraph added to the movie review? Why else but to show disdain for Republicans. Corliss is like a guy with Tourette’s syndrome, screaming out inappropriate things always at the wrong time. But he doesn’t have a disease to excuse his foolishness, unless you are one of those that believe leftism a mental disease.

Now, we might recall Richard Corliss was one of those that cried a river when the extremist, left-wing radio network Air America finally went down to utter defeat in the face of conservative talk radio. (“Air America Will Be Missed,” Time Magazine Jan 21, 2010)

As I said, Corliss’ review employed some pretty tortured metaphors and comparisons. In one strange line Corliss said that one of the antagonists in the film was the “king of the ugly prom,” whatever that is supposed to mean. Maybe Corliss thinks Conan went on his rampages because he never got a date for the prom?

Another badly penned line follows a segment where Corliss describes the blood of innocent women as being the “nectar” of the film’s mean girl character played by Rose McGowan. Corliss followed that with, “And bloodshed is this Conan’s plasma.” Blood basically IS plasma… isn’t it?  Worse, he started his paragraph with the word “and,” generally thought to be a literary faux pas.

One odd attempt at levity has, “Zym cracking one rival’s skull into crimson pulp, like an Easter egg with the red dye on the inside.” Who goes about smashing their Easter eggs to a bloody “pulp”? That would be one crazy Easter morning.

Further, Conan, “uses his sword to give a warrior from an enemy clan an instant nose job — he cuts off the man’s nose to spite his race…” We all know the old saw of cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face, but isn’t that something one does to one’s own self? Doing it to someone else is just mayhem! And if this was a racial thing in the movie, Corliss didn’t fill in his reader to that little bit of important info to make his quip make sense.

Anyway, a literary giant Corliss does not seem to be. But did he give a sensible review to the movie? Well, he was snide, dismissive, and silly in his tone, so it is obvious he didn’t take the film very seriously – and maybe rightfully so as the thing seems to be bombing at the box office. That is no crime against journalism, to be sure. But one gets the feeling that he only reviewed the movie to unleash his badly formed puns and as an excuse to attack Republicans. The ulterior motive makes his “review” seem somewhat empty.

Recently, on Piers Morgan’s show, comedian George Lopez said that if Sarah Palin wins the Presidency he’s going to move to Canada (I immediately made a donation to Palin’s PAC).

Lopez said his elitist attitude views on Palin were due to the fact that he likes his “politicians to actually have a political background.” What a crock. This guy campaigned for Obama in Detroit in 2008, yet the majority of Obama’s political background consisted in community organizing under the auspices of a Weatherman terrorist named William Ayers.

But that’s all common knowledge.

Anyway, back to Lopez’s claim that he likes his “politicians to actually have a political background.” Does he not know that Palin was Governor of Alaska?  

I’m being serious folks, this is embarrassing.

If you have the time, and want the laugh, read some of the things Lopez said when campaigning for Obama in 2008: that’s when he made use of rhetorical questions like “Do you like waking up every day to banks closing?” (As if the economy under Bush, that averaged just over 5.7% unemployment, had been bad.)

Question for Lopez: Do you like watching Obama do everything he can to spend our nation into oblivion, to apologize to our enemies, to stumble through speeches he’s reading off a teleprompter, and to nationalize car manufacturers, like GM and Chrysler?

Let me just say this: If Palin winning will get Lopez out of the country I’m getting a Palin 2012 sticker tonight. And if Lopez actually follows through with leaving once she’s elected – which is something Baldwin and Roberts lacked the courage to do once Bush won – I’ll drive him to Canada on my dime.

I would consider it a service to my country.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail.

The cast was right out of a Robert Altman film, there was a large number of well known actors including William Hurt (Paulson – Sec. Treasury), James Woods (Fuld – Lehman Bros), Paul Giamatti (Bernanke – Chair, Federal Reserve), Bill Pullman (Dimon – JPMorgan Chase), Ed Asner (Buffet – Berkshire Hathaway), Billy Crudup (Geithner – President, Federal Reserve), Matthew Modine (Thain – CIT Group), Tony Shalhoub (Mack – Morgan Stanley), Topher Grace (Wilkinson), Cynthia Nixon (Davis), and many others. They all looked and played their parts very well with the exception that there seemed to be no effort made toward sounding like the people they played. It was difficult to get past the notable voices of the actors. Paul Giamatti sounds like Paul Giamatti and nothing like Ben Bernanke. Hurt sounded nothing like Paulson. Crudup nothing like Geithner. Perfection wasn’t necessary, but it seemed as though there was little to no effort made at all by the actors to at least sound a little more like the real people they were portraying and less like themselves.

The story opens on a  shot of Ronald Reagan. It is news footage of a speech he gives on deregulation. Credits play as we see an image of Clinton signing a piece of legislation as the audio of newsmakers make mention that this is Congress’ bill being singed. Alan Greenspan is seen and states, “Don’t regulate for regulation’s sake,” which is followed by Bush proclaiming everyone should live out the American dream and own their own home. Miscellaneous clips talks of high profits and subprime loans, and then mortgage meltdown and government bailout.

At this point, I am thinking this film is going to be about blame… and that blame is going to be deregulation ushered in by Reagan, the Republican Congress during the Clinton years, Bush 43, and Reagan through Bush’s Federal Reserve appointee, Alan Greenspan.

This prompts me to check the cast and crew to see who they support and if they are bringing their agenda to this story in their hopes to rewrite history and put Republicans in a negative light and Democrats in a positive light before the election in 2012. And, of course, the Director and the Writer are both ardent Obama supporters. All those at HBO support Obama like Co-President Eric Kessler, Co-President Richard Plepler, President of HBO entertainment Sue Naegle, President of HBO Films Len Amato and Executive Producers Paula Weinstein, Carol Fenelon, and Ezra Swerdlow. Even the Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau and Casting Director Alexa Fogel have contributed to Obama’s 2008 campaign. And the Obama supporting list of actors is long too: Topher Grace, William Hurt, Matthew Modine, Cynthia Nixon, and Amy Carlson. As if that’s not enough, there are many other ardent left-wingers like Paul Giamatti, Bill Pullman, Tony Shalhoub, and Ed Asner.

Then the story opens on James Woods playing Dick Fuld, Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers… an ardent Democrat and Obama supporter. James Woods stands out as the political maverick in the cast. In a recent interview with New York Magazine, Woods is quoted as saying, “I’ve always said that the next Obama slogan should be, ‘Barack Obama: Putting America Out of Business,’ because that’s what he’s doing.” So I decided to turn off my bias filter and give this story a chance.

As the story unfolded, I saw that the villains in this film weren’t the Republicans, rather it was a single villain… the total and complete financial collapse of our nation, or as Bernanke puts it, “[replaying] the depression of the 1930s. Only this time… far, far worse.” So, regardless of any one American’s political affiliation watching this film, total and complete financial collapse is an enemy we can all collectively desire to defeat.

The heroes, however, that’s a little more complicated. The actual heroes of the story are Republicans Henry Paulson (Secretary of the Treasury), Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve), and Independent Timothy Geithner (President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). They artfully maneuver their way through the minefield of economic collapse. Bear Stearns has already collapsed, Lehman Brothers is on the brink, Merrill Lynch next, and with all this going on, AIG – the safety net for all these creditors – was in the process of imploding from its own lack of liquidity and inability to meet its obligations. If AIG falls, all the banks fall. People would pull their money out of their banks and there would be no George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) trying to stop the “run on the bank” by convincing his depositors to take only what they need from his honeymoon stash. America, as we know it, would be in ruins.

Every maneuver in their quest to stabilize the markets is met with unpredictable reactions. Once they believe they’ve averted disaster, the pundits, investors, and citizens react differently than expected. It’s a reminder of Nobel winning economist F.A. Hayek’s precept that, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

But in the end, as we all know, it was capital injections in the form of a Troubled Asset Relied Plan (TARP) that would “save the day.” In short, the plan would see the U.S. government purchase assets and equity from all financial institutions, even if they didn’t need it, in order to stabilize and strengthen the financial sector. As Bernanke put it, the upside would be stabilizing banks faster, the downside would be nationalizing a few banks. Their plan to soften the blow was that they would force private banks to participate in this plan under law, but that the government would not have a voting interest or the ability to tell the banks how they use the money injected into their coffers… leaving the question to the viewer, “They will lend it out, won’t they?”

But, was TARP the right solution? If one believes it was, then the heroes of this story are without a doubt Republicans Paulson and Bernanke. But, if one believes it wasn’t the right solution, then the Republicans are just kicking the can down the road. Regardless, the story is a quest for a private solution, according to Paulson.

As Republican public relations guru Jim Wilkson (Topher Grace) says at one point, “You just can’t hand the banks massive piles of cash. Nobody’s going to go for it. To the Republicans, it’s nationalization. To the Democrats, it’s a bailout. And the banks are going to go ballistic.”

The story is well crafted and builds suspense out of the unexciting topics of finance and economics. There were parts that bothered me, like making the Republican Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, look like an immature boob, or Republican presidential candidate Senator McCain look like he is clueless on economic matters contrasted by Senator Obama’s grip on the subject, or simplistically blaming deregulation while omitting the fault of Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, or that derivatives and subprime loans were born during Clinton’s presidency, or more importantly that in 2006 Republicans pleaded with the Democratically-controlled Congress to begin taking measures by pulling the reigns back on Fannie and Freddie to mitigate the impending economic disaster.

Those criticisms, however, were offset by so many of the lines delivered by Topher Grace’s character, Jim Wilkson, who best resembled the attitudes and feelings of most Americans during this time. At one point, it is suggested that the government purchases up the toxic assets of the banks, to which he responds, “Ohhh, call it cash for trash,” he also calls nationalization “the N-word” and that it is un-American, and he suggests that the government running the banks would be like the government running the Post Office, which they “run like a dream.” Another character addresses the issue that the government having the ability to dictate compensation would be the biggest “brain drain this country has ever seen.” And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is characterized as something like the head of the Mafia. Her character comes across as an elitist snob, which I particularly enjoyed.

The movie was a surprise. Although it wasn’t 100 percent balanced, it was enough for this right-winger to actually enjoy it. And the filmmakers did a pretty decent job packing in a lot of characters and a lot of story into a short amount of time. If Obama-loving HBO can pull off the upcoming Sarah Palin story, Game Change, and the Dick Cheney movie, Angler, with the same deftness and fairness, I will be pleasantly surprised.  Better yet… I will be astonished.

Reporter Steve Lopez was dispatched to the scene to write up the various cutbacks for the Los Angeles Times.  Lopez is known for being the journalist whose articles on a schizophrenic musician inspired the Robert Downey Jr./Jaime Foxx film The Soloist.  Then all of a sudden, what had the makings of a compelling human interest piece on one of the handful of quintessentially Hollywood high schools quickly devolved into a sob story about how these poor teachers and students have been victimized by the dastardly Republicans and their resistance to tax hikes.

How did he do this?

First, Lopez paints a rosy picture of the school by glowingly describing a performance by the jazz band and cherry-picking quotes raving about teachers; his portrayal of Hamilton is a lot like Sean Penn’s depiction of Iraq in Team America:

As it happens, Hamilton is my local high school and I have family and friends who have graduated from the Music Magnet in recent years.  To put it bluntly, many of their experiences didn’t resemble the mythical land of incredible teachers and students anxious to learn that Lopez describes.  An anonymous Hamilton graduate told me she recalls students doing cocaine in the state-of the art auditorium (which was overhauled with a lavish grant to the Music Magnet)—in fact, the source recalled students showing up to class on an assortment of drugs.  Faculty members were seen “celebrating” with students at cast parties after plays.

And I thought programs like these were meant to keep kids off drugs.

The better students still spent a large portion of class time listening to their ipods.

Not surprisingly for an arts magnet–or any school, for that matter–there have been allegations of political propagandizing by the Music Magnet teachers, both within and out of the context of the course material. Among other examples, one of the choral teachers indtroduced the class to an ode to George W. Bush called “THE DOOFUS MARCHES ON: Battle Hymn of the Republicans.” The chorus:

Glory! Glory! How he’ll Screw Ya!

Glory! Glory! What’s It To Ya!

Glory! Glory! How he’ll Screw Ya!
T

This Doofus marches on.

I’m not sure what’s more on the nose: the indoctrination or the humor.

One of these spectacular teachers Lopez mentions in the article taught an acting class; an anonymous source sums up the class experience this way: “She taught me nothing about acting but a lot about AIDS.”  Another teacher mentioned in the article, according to an alum, “pushed an anti-Bush agenda” and openly discussed his alcohol abuse with the students during class time.

These examples are from the highly touted Music Magnet; I have even more frightening anecdotes from the main school.

But the stuff that doesn’t make Hamilton High seem awesomely awesome didn’t make it into Lopez’s piece.  What did slip past the editors, however, was a four paragraph tirade against Republicans:

But during tough times, even GOP hero Ronald Reagan and rock-solid conservative Gov. Pete Wilson temporarily raised taxes along with making tough cuts. Today, California’s Republican legislators have so far refused to support Gov. Brown’s plan to let voters decide whether they want to go that same route: to balance the budget half with cuts and half by temporarily extending tax increases.

Nor have the Republicans explained how they’d whack $26 billion without putting more teachers out of work and destroying schools in their own districts. And where, by the way, are the parents in those districts? Are they going to watch in silence as their kids get hammered?

At Hamilton, booster club president Chris Kenemuth told me she’s a Republican who doesn’t mind paying taxes to save great programs. She’s been trying to contact Republican legislators to let them know how she feels, but they’re not responding.

Of course not. What can they say that doesn’t shame them further? And how would they explain who wins when you fire teachers and demoralize students; when you take something that works and destroy it?

If this is Mr. Lopez’s honest analysis of what ails L.A. city schools, maybe he’s been spending too much time in the auditorium partaking in the aforementioned extracurricular activities with the jazz band… and various faculty members.

One of reasons we’re in this mess is because tax rates are already so damn high in this state (not to mention in the city of Los Angeles) that businesses are leaving in droves and taking their jobs, and potential tax revenue, with them.  So what should we do?  According to Lopez, raise ‘em up some more so that LAUSD, which boasts about a 40% graduation rate, can continue to phone it in for our kids.  What’s incredible about this number is that LAUSD wants to move students along; show up and complete most of the course work, and they’re good to go.  This is apparently a tall order for most families.  To be fair, the Hamilton Music Magnet has an exceptional graduation rate, but doesn’t that say more about the already motivated students and parents than it does about the effectiveness of the program?

The CATO Institute published a report last years estimating that each student in Los Angeles Unified cost tax payers over $25,000 per year for fiscal year 2008.  You read that right.  Given the graduation rate, that’s over $62,500 per year per graduate.  LAUSD itself only cops to shelling out about $10k, but even that’s still more than the average private school tuition for the L.A. area (here’s an article that explains the discrepancy between the reported and actual cost).  But again, if you’re a liberal, there is no price too high for our kids to have a public school environment to do drugs hate Bush learn jazz trumpet.

Lopez asks, “and as for those teachers who remain, will their class sizes shoot past the 40s and into the 50s?”  He should be asking, given all the money spent, why are they already in the 40s?

In the eyes of Lopez, the liberals and Democrats who have run California and the City of Angels for the last generation are free from blame, and same goes for the unions that have put America’s public school-going children at the mercy of a system without incentives that’s designed to protect the bad teachers at the expense of the students and good teacher… I mean teachers.

If any public school could be exemplary in Los Angeles, it’d be Hamilton, but not even the most talented kids, the “magnet” status, or the occasional generous donation could make this program a clear success.

Of the Hamilton High School alumni I know, many seemed to have a rich and educational experience, others had their time and your money wasted, and most fell somewhere in between.  Personally, I took music every year of school starting from sixth grade up until I received a minor in music from UC Berekely, so I am all for including music as part of formal education and Hamilton may well be the best we can do at this point in time. Still, many who have taken that journey through Hamilton High School Music Magnet and the people close to them know that it’s not at all the picture of perfection described in Steve Lopez’s one-sided report. And the GOP okaying a mid-recession tax hike isn’t going to change that.

But this is Hollywood and it’s the L.A. Times, and I do love a good fantasy.

Most notably missing on the current subject of China’s human rights record is Richard Gere, a man who has championed the Tibetan people for years and one who I believe to be sincere in his cause. In 2008, Mr. Gere took to Washington and said this about the Bush administration and Tibet:

But the Bush administration was not silent on the subject and did more than just show the public where Tibet could be found on a map. In 2007 Bush hosted a very public event for the Dalai Lama (also a Nobel Peace Prize winner) and awarded him one of the highest U.S. honors and called on China to open talks with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing reviles as a separatist.

In 2009 the current administration snubbed the Dalai Lama before Obama’s trip to Beijing, later holding a private meeting with the exiled leader in the Whitehouse Map Room away from the press and then sending his Holiness out the back door.

Hollywood activist like Richard Gere who only speak out on human rights when they’re able to position their cause through a prism of righteous indignation over a Republican administration and not governments in general, let more people die while they wait for their boogie man to return to the White House. What say you, Mr. Gere?

“Dog Day Afternoon”: This Sidney Lumet film starring Al Pacino ranks as one of the best, and actually does comes with pizza and soda. When Sonny robs a bank to pay for his boyfriend’s sex change operation, things go horribly wrong and the first-time robber ends up with a bank full of hostages (Democrats).

This film is the perfect framework for Democrats to work their victim identity while trying to sneak in a pork-barrel project that gives members who lost in the last election a sex change before heading home for the holidays.

“Die Hard”: The first “Die Hard” film is also one of the best action films of all time and full of holiday hostages. Detective John McLane single-handedly saves a tower full of captives at his wife’s Christmas party from thirteen Euro-trash thieves trying to steel $640 million in bearer bonds.

Democrats will love this one because it’ll give them more ideas about robbing Wall Street to feed their base with food stamps and no income, no asset, home loans. It gives Republicans the chance to show Democrats what life would be like if they behaved like European socialist.

“Speed”: A great film that should have never had a sequel. A bus hurdling through Los Angeles unable to go below 55 mph or all the hostages go boom!

This is a Democrat favorite because of its earth-friendly-mass-transit theme and melting pot of Americans riding a bus while a disturbed white guy threatens their lives. In this film Democrats will most relate to the bus driver/hostages because they fight on the side of big unions to raise pay, health care benefits and pensions for government workers that make things go forward, backward, left, and right. Republicans hate this one because they drive cars.

“Misery”: “Misery” is one of the most eerie portrayals of forced captivity in a psychological hostage thriller. Famed author Paul Sheldon’s car drives off the road, and sweetie nurse Annie Wilkes (“his #1 fan”) takes him in. Anne, clearly off her meds hobbles her hostage to keep him from leaving.

Democrats will not identify with the hostage in this film because he’s rich, and writes books, not tax laws. However, “Misery” will send Republicans cringing at the memory of voting for Bush’s Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, because the crazy bitch in this film has gone off her free meds and left them with a hobbled economy.

“Air Force One”: Bad guys know they’re in trouble when their target is played by Harrison Ford, not Will Smith, and their hostages are his wife and kids, not fellow Scientologist. In “Air Force One” President James Marshall (Ford) defeats Russian Terrorists mid-air, disarms a bomb, and exclaims, “Give me back my plane.”

This film is a Democratic wet dream because the terrorists are white Russians not Iranian Muslims holding their President hostage. Republicans relate to this one because they know Reagan would have sent missiles into Iran if they’d not let our hostages go 20 minutes after Jimmy Carter left for Palestine.

So if you open your door this holiday season and spot miserable carolers getting out of a bus shouting, “Attica, Attica, Attica!” instead of singing “Silent Night, Holly Night,” you know Democrats have been set free  from the Republican tower and they’ve come to say “Give me back my money!”

But last week, the political glory was complimented (and advanced) by the all-out trouncing conservatives gave to liberals in America’s pop culture.

Just think of it: Over the course of just one week HBO aired Dennis Miller’s new stand-up special, Bristol Palin secured a place in the finals for Dancing With The Stars (DTWS), “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” premiered t huge ratings, and President George W. Bush brought the house down on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.”

While decidedly more libertarian than conservative, Miller’s “The Big Speech” will grate on many liberals because of his ongoing unapologetic support for military actions against terrorism and his abiding love of country. At the same time, his common sense approach to many of life’s quandaries will continue to be a breath of fresh air to the myriad of conservative fans he won to his side in the days and months after 9/11. (This type of approach allows him to remain more comedian than political pundit, yet say of the recent midterm elections: “I think the kids’ table has been in charge for a while now and it’s time for something else. …I’m not anti-Obama, I just disagree.”)

As for Bristol Palin’s ascension to the finals for DTWS, the middle ground is harder to find than it might be with Miller’s show: Her climb toward the top on DTWS has literally driven the Left apoplectic. So much so that liberal bloggers have cried foul, accusing her of cheating and claiming that Bristol has only done this well because “Sarah Palin paid someone off.”

Tweeted another blogger: “These republicans are taking over! They vote Brandy off of DWTS and kept Bristol Palin! Crazy!” And still other bloggers, who lack the couth to blog without resorting to profanities, have indicated in clear language that they believe this will be the last season for DWTS if Bristol does indeed win.

Think about it folks: We have a national deficit that’s gotten so big it almost escapes comprehension, yet liberals are fleeing to medicine cabinets for nitro tablets because Sarah Palin’s daughter has made the finals.

Was last week a great week or what?

Speaking of Palin, her reality show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” debuted as “the “top rated series premiere in network TLC’s history.” As five million viewers watched that first episode, they saw the kind of woman the National Organization for Women (NOW) hates, because she doesn’t need social programs and pity parties contrived by the Left in order to get ahead in life. They also saw the kind of woman Keith Olbermann deplores, because she can bake cupcakes with her kids and kick the liberal lunacy of open borders in the head at the same time.

Thus, while viewers saw Palin fish, climb rocks, and go glacier hiking, they also saw the 14-foot tall privacy fence her husband built to keep their creepy neighbor from taking pictures of her and heard her say of the fence: “I thought [this] was a good example [that]…others could look at and say, ‘Oh, this is what we need to do to secure our nation’s border.’”

But as good as Miller, Bristol Palin, and Sarah Palin were, the crème de la crème of last week was Bush on Leno. From the moment he walked out on the stage (to a standing ovation), to the moment he and Leno shook hands at the close of the interview, Leno seemed honored, if not apprehensive.

Before an audience that continued to interrupt with applause for various answers given by Bush, viewers heard him defend his decision to make the 9/11 attackers face “justice” and somberly talk about other decisions a leader has to make: like deciding to remain calm in the Florida classroom on the morning of 9/11, because he knew the children were watching him and he didn’t want to react to the news of the attacks in such a way as to scare them.

Bush emerged from the interview a leader again. And this is just one more reason I believe conservatives throughout the nation must be asking themselves if there’s any way this week can be as good as the last.