Did you know, Kim Jong-Il, the now-dead slave master of North Korea, loved Hollywood films?

“The cinema occupies an important place in the overall development of art and literature. As such it is a powerful ideological weapon for the revolution and construction.”

So wrote Kim Jong-il in his 1987 essay The Cinema and Directing

How right he was.

And what isn’t there for a brutal, murderous dictator responsible for the oppression of millions to love about modern-day Hollywood; an institution that opposes liberty, worships the state, and can’t wait to  suck up to a couple of other King Jong-Ils in the form of the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez?

But Kim was less than enamoured by Hollywood’s portrayal of his own regime.

When his beloved James Bond was captured and tortured during a North Korean mission in Die Another Day, the government called it “insulting to the Korean nation”.

But most scathing of all was Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America: World Police, in which a marionette of Kim Jong-il with a crudely-impersonated Korean accent sits at a piano singing: “I’m so ronrery [lonely].”

This parody of a vain and isolated leader is, to many Westerners, the presiding impression of Kim Jong-il.

God bless Trey Parker and Matt Stone who forever beclowned North Korea’s evil dictator during this shameful era when the rest of liberal Hollywood has forever disgraced themselves by embracing human rights abusers of the worst kind in both Cuba and Venezuela. Parker and Stone also proved how effective a brilliant piece of satire can be. This evil man will forever be a punchline.

Relive those NSFW moments below:

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Of course, I’m hardly Rosie’s daily television show target demographic.  I work for a living instead of sitting at home staring slack-jawed at the succession of Sham-Wow commercials and ads for shyster lawyers promising big payouts for the imaginary injuries of their deadbeat clients that fill the time between inane segments of mindless yak.  And while the social parasite demographic seems to grow larger after every freebie, hand-out and pay-off the Administration and its Congressional flunkies issue in favor of their employment-averse constituents, Rosie O’Donnell still seems like a bad economic bet.

This is no longer the same country as it was back in 1999 when Rosie was honchoing her first daytime gabfest and hassling Tom Selleck over his support for the Second Amendment of the Constitution.  It’s not even the same country as it was in May 2007, when the former “Queen of Nice’s” anti-conservative bile culminated in her slandering American fighting men and women as terrorists on The View:

ROSIE O‘DONNELL, HOST, “THE VIEW”:  655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead.  Who are the terrorists?

ELISABETH HASSELBECK, “VIEW” CO-HOST:  Who are the terrorists?

O‘DONNELL:  655 Iraqis—I‘m saying you have to look—we invaded…

HASSELBECK:  Wait, who are you calling terrorists? 

O‘DONNELL:  I‘m saying that, if you were in Iraq, and another country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?

She also takes particular pleasure in attacking the Catholic Church and seems to consider anyone not buying wholesale into her radical agenda against traditional marriage and adoption as a contemptible bigot.  And let’s not forget her equally insightful foray into that moronic twilight zone known as 9/11 trutherism; it completes her personal trifecta of idiocy.  

Rosie’s backers for the new show seem excited at the chance to pick up Oprah’s viewers, whose departure will apparently leave them without a reason to live.  “Those 4, 5, 6 ratings points have to go somewhere,” one told Variety. “Something’s going to come in and fill that vacuum.”

But with the President’s approval ratings in freefall, and with Congress envying the polling numbers achieved by such public favorites as Kim Jong-Il, Vanilla Ice and syphilis, it is a new world.  Rosie’s kind of aggressive, grating, in-your-face liberal stupidity may well serve to alienate a substantial part of today’s potential audience.  Her partners seem to know it too, assuring Variety that:

“If Rosie wanted to just have a platform for her causes, she would go get a show on cable news . . . .  She’s a comedian, not a political pundit.”

Except no one is laughing – her Rosie Live! variety show was cancelled the first night after scoring an anemic 5.25 million viewers, though the presence of such hip, relevant and cutting edge guest artists as Alanis Morrissette and someone/something called “Ne-Yo” probably didn’t help. 

The fact is that Rosie O’Donnell is an unpleasant, smug and actively dumb woman who is unlikely to garner anything like the following she once had before embracing her personal jihad against the most deeply held and sincere beliefs of a significant majority of the country.  The stay at-home mommies I know are too busy to sit and watch television without a very good reason, and being bitched at by a sanctimonious harpy isn’t one of them.  Oprah likes Barack Obama, but (I assume) she doesn’t spend an hour a day telling her audience that they are the scum of the Earth for not agreeing with her.  Rosie probably couldn’t resist – and watching her show would probably make the Bataan Death March look like a week at Club Med.   

So, there are two possible reasons behind the resurrection of Rosie as a daytime talk show hostess.  The first is that the producers think they can make some money by harnessing what they believe to be her undeniable audience appeal.  Perhaps that’s true, but that seems like a triumph of hope over recent experience considering the unbroken track record of audience alienation and failure that has haunted her since she left her original talk show back in 2002 as well as the increasing polarization of the American public into liberal and conservative camps.  Does it seem smart to invest in a show that at the threshold flips the bird to at least 50% of the people who might be enticed to watch it?

The other possibility is that Rosie’s aggressive lefty political stance is a net positive for her backers, and that they believe she would provide a valuable, if only intermittently coherent, liberal voice in the vast wasteland that is daytime television.  And they may be willing to suck up the potential losses in order to let that obnoxious voice be heard.

The truth is probably somewhere in between.  It’s not unknown for Hollywood to try to mix business with leftism (*cough* The Green Zone *cough*).  Of course, that doesn’t always work real well. (*cough* The Green Zone *cough*). 

Will Rosie O’Donnell succeed with her career resurrection?  No one can know for sure, but just in case, I’m keeping a crucifix and some garlic handy.

It all played out a little too perfect — a surprise last-minute swoop by Clinton into enemy territory to heroically stare down the world’s most blood-thirsty dictator and rescue two damsels in distress.  The press asked the White House how Bill Clinton became involved in the rescue of the two American women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, trespassing into North Korea and sentenced to “10 years hard labor.”  They said they had no involvement.  Of course, Bill Clinton’s wife Hillary works for President Obama as Secretary of State; certainly, the press surmised, she must have been responsible.  The response from the State Department was that Bill Clinton was on a “private humanitarian mission.” How does one pull off such an extempore feat without government help?  Why, call a movie mogul — of course!

Steve Bing, the multimillionaire behind “Beowulf” and “The Polar Express,” now has a new blockbuster in his collection — call it “The Pyongyang Express.”  Clearly a man who knows how to make things happen, Bing didn’t have time for protocol, pesky nuclear disarmament concerns or international law.  He fueled up his private Boeing 737 and before you could yell “Action!” a former U.S. President was on his way to meet Kim Jong Ill, a sworn enemy of the United States — who just a month ago was launching missiles aimed precariously close to Hawaii.

But it doesn’t stop there.  As any mogul knows, making the picture is one thing — but it’s all about marketing it big, baby!  No worries, Bing’s Hollywood P.R. firm Rogers & Cowan was brought in to arrange a spectacular homecoming.  Since the women being rescued worked for a company of Academy-Award winning, greenie Al Gore, the firm wisely chose a solar powered facility to accommodate press events.  Meanwhile, the pictures coming back from North Korea were playing out beautifully.  Clinton looked so glum and stern next to a clearly delighted, but frail Kim Jong-Il.  It reminded the world how wonderful Clinton can play emotions for the cameras: “In this scene, Bill, you are meeting a man who wants to take over the world — remember, you’re Luke Skywalker, and he’s Darth Vader.”

Back in Tinseltown, the set folks were readying a hangar at Bob Hope International Airport in Burbank for our hero’s triumphant return.  No official U.S. government personnel in this scene.  No, this is where tears are shed, and father-figure Al Gore emerges to hug the dear employees he feared were lost forever.  One of the rescued women said Clinton’s team was “super-cool,” and she was right.  Welcome to the A-List sweetheart.  No disrespect to the woman, but the team may have done too much of a super-cool perfect job — usually prisoners look a little more shaken and stirred as they descend the airplane steps back into captivity.

These rescued prisoners had make-up, wardrobe and perfect hair that gleamed under the lights of the awaiting cameras.  Thankfully, no hard labor evident.  But something about this blockbuster leaves the audience feeling a tad anxious after the credits roll.  After all, the bar has certainly been raised.  Will there be more cinematic rescues of American captives — servicemen and women in Afghanistan who are taken by the Taliban or captured in Iraq by roving militias?  The three “hikers” who crossed into Iran and were taken prisoner?  Should Clinton be dropped by helicopter onto ships seized by Somali pirates?

We’ll have to wait for the sequel.

Thank you for your patience.  Let’s begin.

Although facebook has been the gift that keeps on giving in terms of confirming whether or not a prospective date is or is not a liberal, for this installment I thought I’d put my instincts to the test by participating in the very underrated process of “stereotyping.”

I think, and rightfully so, that many Americans feel that Los Angeles is a place bankrupt of spirituality…not to mention just plain bankrupt. However, there is a spiritual movement among Angelinos that folks may not be aware of, largely because it is a faith so self indulgent it would be difficult for the average hard working American to fathom.  This movement is called “Spiritual Psychology.”

Let me just say this for fear of being labeled judgmental: I have nothing against spirituality or psychology; in fact, I actually saw a Medicine Man on an Indian reservation in the Jemez Valley to help me with a “problem” I’d prefer not to discuss here. It was an extremely spiritual, dare I say magical experience, after which my “problem” did not improve in the least.

In terms of psychology, I am a huge proponent, having spent countless hours and dollars on a therapist’s couch over the years. The results have been miraculous: I am aware of every problem I have ever had and the root cause behind each one of those problems, and yet somehow have not discovered the means to change a single pattern of behavior.

So what I’m saying is….I’m open.  So when a platonic girlfriend of mine mentioned she was attending a University for Spiritual Psychology, my interest was peaked. She was what I call a “Utopian Liberal” with an impossibly positive attitude–the kind of person who if her arms fell off, would know destiny was calling her to be an apple bobbing champion.  If God gave this girl lemons, she didn’t make lemonade, she made a lemon curd tart with a Raspberry drizzle.  I couldn’t fault her for this. However, due to my complete lack of ability to live my life that way, I did what anyone would do, and resented her greatly.

Here’s where the stereotyping comes in, and I think justifiably so.  It was very difficult for me to imagine a Conservative….Republican…..okay, anyone who would attend an institution of lower learning that had the audacity to label itself a “University” when the only requirements for admittance were thousands of dollars, a bevy of emotional problems, and a tremendous amount of spare time.  However, if I had to take that leap, I would imagine that the student body would be comprised solely of liberals, so I asked my friend if she could set me up with a classmate.

She was amenable to the idea if someone stepped forward. Then she closed her eyes.

I want all of you to stop reading and wait 15 seconds in silence….because that’s what I was forced to do. Apparently she couldn’t “actively” think of someone.  My potential date had to reveal herself in my friend’s mind. A few more seconds and her eyes opened along with her cranial curtains to reveal who had taken the stage: Jaquelib.  However, I had to promise two things before my friend would make the call.

First: I would have to approach this with an open heart and look for her loving essence.

My response…yeah, yeah, that’s fine…heart’s open….and looking for a woman’s loving essence is always part of the plan anyway.  What else?

Second: I would have to attend an orientation night at the University so that I could understand and lovingly embrace Jaquelib’s emotional journey without judgment.

My response: a round off double back handspring into an Arabian dive roll. The promise of material was extremely exciting.

***

The Orientation

I got out of my car in front of the building, scaled the stairs to the information desk where I signed in and took a seat in the banquet hall. This process took me all of 90 seconds and within that brief period I was greeted no less than 457 times.  There were hosts and hostesses everywhere…all dressed in identical black suits…smiles plastered on.  There was no wavering in expressions or vocal tones. They held their arms down in front of them with hands folded. All the men were curiously bald and shiny. I figured at any moment the protective plates which housed their facial features would slide off revealing tiny alien beings driving their respective bodies.

I would have made a break for it but they were positioned at every exit and with my imagination already running wild; I didn’t want to consider the consequences of a failed escape attempt.

As I enjoyed the melding of scented candles and Carpet Fresh, I turned my attention to the potential student body, eavesdropping where I could to get some sense of my fellow spiritual psychologists in the making.  This group was the “Who’s Who” of those who had no idea who they were. In a strange way, I was beginning to feel lost myself…I found this noteworthy as if there were some sub-auditory subliminal message being broadcast throughout the room:  “Doubt yourself. Doubt yourself. We can help. We can help.”

One of the black suited extraterrestrials took the stage and enthusiastically introduced the founders of the university. I don’t quite know how to explain this, but for me, there is nothing more unnerving than a husband/wife team teaching anything to anyone.  I know I am not alone in this theory or the world would never have been introduced to Marty and Bobbi Mohan-Culp, the musical directors at Alta Dena Middle School portrayed so accurately by Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer.

Out of respect for the anonymity of the institution and for my ease of association, I will henceforth refer to the founders of the University as The Culps.

Now the Culps had their pitch down. They knew that every potential buyer in that room (save for one) was lost, desperate, searching, dissatisfied with his or her life, and therefore open–and by “open” I mean subject to influence.

They cleverly used the word “Stuck.” A word so general anyone could find meaning in it, not unlike a fortune cookie.  We were all united by our inability to improve our lives….and guess who had the ability to pull us out of the mud?  The Culps. They would lead us out. Don’t get me wrong, we would all have to do our part. We would all pitch in like a not so shovel ready emotional public works program which would require extensive sharing….so much sharing, in fact, that it would make an Alanon group seem like a bunch of introverts.

In addition, we would have to “let go of our painful ego structure by removing identity.” Let me repeat that “let go of our painful ego structure by removing identity.” The math was basic…and alarming.

Once we removed our identities, we could “manifest” what we wanted in our lives: the great job, the big break, the perfect woman, less back hair…

This is far from an original concept and it’s generally explained by the Kool-Aid drinkers as a technique to attract the things that you want in life. My theory is, at the root of “manifesting” is a sense of entitlement along with the inherent belief that you deserve to have whatever you want regardless of the work you put in or your qualifications….and that is not how this world works…unless your goal is to be the President of the United States of America.

The Culps however, didn’t use the President as an example. Rather, they rolled a video testimonial from a graduate of the program, who once she realized her ego was irrelevant, she was able to realize the dream of running her own business: Alpaca rugs weaved by imprisoned Bolivian mothers. That woman was Meg Whitman , Carly Fiorina, nobody you’ve ever heard of.

If you took a step back and put the pieces together, it was easy to see the Culps’ agenda. Excessive sharing under the guise of transparency, the removal of the self, the devaluation of initiative through “manifestation,” and cult-like homogeny. This wasn’t spiritual psychology. It was “emotional and spiritual redistribution.”

And then it occurred to me… something horrifying:  The journey from this….

….to this…

…..was far shorter than one might expect.

I left the orientation, hopped on the Hale-Bopp comet, and headed home to secure my date with a liberal. Call me a stereotyper.

***

The Date

Jacquelib’s idea for a date was to meet in any open space where we wouldn’t be limited by any physical barriers such as walls. This was consistent with my post-orientation expectation. She picked the bluffs over looking the Pacific Ocean. I agreed. No walls.

She was late, but had a valid excuse: Being a liberal, her time was far more valuable than mine and I knew that going in, so I waited…feeling surprisingly at one with the…cliff.

I was just about to discover an internal truth that been evading me for 23 years….when she showed up.  I don’t think looks are generally that important to my ongoing research, but I think it’s important in the instance to tell you all that Jacquelib was beyond beautiful.  The kind of beautiful that makes you ignore things like compatibility.

For some bizarre reason when we hugged “hello” I stood on my toes as if to momentarily fool her or myself into believing I was taller than I am. The odd thing was I am already taller than her, than she, whatever.

She had a very soothing vibe about her. She even handed me a cold tea drink called The Dragon which was an oddly colored green and came with an industrial-sized wide-mouth straw with which to inhale the numerous boba tapioca pearls which were stacked high at the bottom of the cup.

We chose a nice spot to sit down. The lotus position was implied so I bent myself uncomfortably into it. Before there was sharing of any kind, Jaquelib wanted to begin with a guided meditation. She would be my guide. Eyes closed. Breathe. Breathe. I was instructed to mentally travel to the whitest of sand beaches where I would discover a box that was left just for me. I was to open the box and see the note inside. On the note something was written, something I wanted.  My note said “Newt in 2012.”  I was to put the note back in the box and bury it in the sand for another loving soul to find. I hoped 65 million loving souls would find that box. Breathe. Breathe. I was definitely breathing, yet she kept saying it. Eyes closed…but then I heard a stirring in the brush from below the ridge so I opened one eye. Breathe. Breathe. The noise louder….closer and then up from God knows where, Breitbart appeared on horseback, riding sidesaddle, as he is wont to do. She must have still been on her beach because she didn’t see him, but I saw him, and he saw me….. in the lotus position, breathing…with one eye open. I was embarrassed. He shook his head, gathered up a mouthful of tobacco juice, coiled, and released, sending a tightly bound liquid bomb 20 feet in distance just over my head blinding a rattlesnake which was descending from a tree just inches behind me. I turned back to Breitbart who gave me a nod, but it was really a warning: be careful. Eyes open she said. Breitbart was gone.

It was time to share….let me be more specific. It was time for her to share and this was when I became painfully aware of an experiment she had been conducting as part of her emotional growth….it was her journey.

Jaquelib had decided that in an attempt to become less self-involved she had removed the use of the word “I” from her vocabulary.  She could use other words to refer to herself, just not “I.” This would serve as some sort of self-prescribed Pavlovian bell to curb her inherent narcissism.  The first time I heard it I nearly choked on a tapioca boba from my Dragon tea.

Jaquelib:  Me had a conversation yesterday with my fear.

Now forget about the content for a second. I couldn’t figure out why using the object form of the 1st person was less self indulgent than using the subject form of the 1st person. It seemed to me she was equally self involved but with the grammar and syntax of primitive man. I pulled myself together.

Jon David: What did your fear say?

It said me is your friend and me is necessary for spiritual growth. So embrace me like you would a friend.

Apparently Fear was conducting the same grammatical experiment. What followed was the biggest series of 1^st date “over-shares” ever recorded in modern dating history. Here’s a small sampling.

Me knows that me is not very smart. This emerald encrusted gem of self-esteem was followed shortly thereafter by….me’d like to have children as soon as possible. Now my heart was open but I must confess I am in no hurry to have stupid children.

With each new share her external beauty dissipated, or at the very least lost its relevance..

My parents were both alcoholics so me have that gene in my family.

Me doesn’t know what my passion is.  Me used to be promiscuous.

She also told me that she had been writing a series of letters to her father from her six-year-old self. She would write them left handed. This would transport her back to a place of rudimentary thinking and expression so that she could truly gain access to how she felt about her father when she was a child.

I was beginning to have a conversation with my Fear, except my Fear was morphing into Sadness and then slowly into Regret.  And Regret was telling me to be careful when writing this article. Jaquelib was sad, and it was real. She was wounded and she was lost. I know what that feels like. Everybody does. And if anyone says they don’t, they are liars..

This didn’t have anything to do with politics. It didn’t have anything to do with being a liberal or a conservative. It had to do with being a human being, and frankly, I felt badly for her and hoped that whatever path she chose, she’d eventually find her box in the sand.

So I listened. Maybe I even looked for her loving essence, but I didn’t feel the need to bring up my political affiliation. It would not have served any purpose.  I knew I would never buy what she had already purchased so blindly and enthusiastically from the Culps.

But there is a lesson here. Redistribution, whether it be emotional or financial, doesn’t work. We should not be forced to share. Americans are kind-hearted people. Hard working and generous people. We do the right thing. We give to charity. We help elderly ladies across the street. We don’t need to be forced to share nor should we be stripped of our individuality.  We need to hold on to our identities because the collection of the unique is what makes this country so amazing.

Kool-Aid tastes good. It goes down smoothly and needs no chaser. It’s easy to understand why someone would reach for the glass. It’s more difficult to understand how and why somebody would serve it.

A few days later, I was reflecting on the date…my fingers hovering over the keyboard indecisively…the phone rang. What I thought was an automated recording was actually a real-life staff member from the University following up with me to see if I’d be interesting in pursuing a degree in spiritual psychology.

Respectfully, me declined.

“My Weekly Date with a Liberal” is sponsored by

“American Heart” available at iTunes

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Note: No Koreans were harmed during the making of this video… Unless you count South Koreans. Then there were probably thousands of them hurt through oppression and starvation. Bear witness, folks!

At the same time, dictator Kim Jong-Il rattles his puny saber and threatens that if any of his ships carrying nuclear materials to other rogue nations are stopped on the high seas, he will consider it an “act of war.”  Well, gee… There was a time not too long ago when the kidnapping of American nationals would have, in itself, been considered an “act of war.”  I imagine that had Teddy Roosevelt or even Ronald Reagan been at the helm when Kim Jong-Il took two American nationals hostage, the response would be quite different.   More likely it would have gone along the lines of: “You have 24 hours to return our citizens before we start obliterating your military bases – one every hour until the hostages are set free.  If we run out of military bases and you still continue to hold them then, unfortunately, we’ll have to start on your cities.  Have a nice day.”  Then, like any good parent, we would follow through with our pledge.

The United Nations, that feckless and ineffectual cesspool of corruption would, of course, raise a momentary wail of crocodile outrage which would die down in a week or two as the world breathed a collective sigh of relief in the knowledge that the North Korean regime had finally been put in its place.

“Oh, but they now have nuclear weapons and will start a nuclear war,” you say.  I doubt it and here’s why:  Nuclear bombs are very difficult and expensive to make.  North Korea has tested two of them.  Those tests were separated by several months, which indicates that they are still very much in the development stage.  The first one was very low yield and may not have even been a nuclear detonation at all.  By way of historical comparison, when we were at war with Japan, after an unprecedented amount of expense and effort we had amassed an arsenal of exactly three nuclear bombs.  The first one we tested in the Nevada desert and the next two were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  At that point we had shot our entire nuclear wad.  It was only because the Japanese believed we had more bombs that they decided it was better to surrender. This points to the likelihood that North Korea, at present at least, doesn’t have a big stockpile of nuclear weapons.  Nor do they have any sort of reliable missile delivery system in place that could be geared up in time to give them much clout.  Finally, our military technology is so vastly superior that, at present, they pose little substantive threat to our allies or us.  The important words to remember are “at present.”  The more time we give them, the more likely they are to make themselves into a far more significant menace.

But, so much for fantasies. We now live in kinder, gentler times. Pipsqueak lunatics with over-inflated egos like Kim Jong-Il are permitted to boss the U.S. around with their grandiose threats.  So, thanks to our President and State Department dithering around trying to find just the right words to cajole Kim Jong-Il into giving back our journalists, their plight has petty much dropped off the radar.  It has been replaced by our Fearless Leader’s desire to immediately socialize health care before any debate can be mustered and his highly principled stand on making sure the FDA regulates the evils of tobacco.

In keeping with our new, more soothing approach to tough foreign policy decisions, I would like to suggest an alternative tactic for getting our two young journalists back.  Al Gore, who employs them at Current TV, has indicated he is willing to personally plead for their release.  If he does go to North Korea, I propose a swap.  Let’s trade Al Gore for Euna Lee and Laura Ling.  Just think of all the wonderful results that could come of it!  We wouldn’t have Uncle Al jetting around promulgating his crackpot Global Warming hysteria in public any longer.  On his days off from rock breaking he could even try convincing the North Korean establishment to go green and sink money into the alternative energy companies he stands to make millions from.  Kim Jong-Il would be far happier having a real celebrity in captivity and even our own broadcast media could make it into an entertaining spectacle.  I can see it now: “Nightline – Day 4,327 – Al Gore Held Hostage!”  Maybe some good can come of this situation after all.

The shame for Bush’s whatever-he-did-every-day was palpable by the left. Ask your favorite lefty what Bush did right and they’ll likely only talk about his help with the Africa AIDS epidemic, and even then it was probably just to look good to all of those voters who are Africans with AIDS. They were ashamed of his Texas-ness, his swagger and for the first time we declared that “go-it-alone” wasn’t an American quality. Somehow, Kim Jong-il would be better under Obama. We would talk together, and he would listen. But Kim Jong-Ronery has upped his missile launches since Bush left office.

I’m still trying to figure out how Obama will blame Bush for the eventual missile attack on South Korea. The problem will not start with the Clinton administration, because we already learned from the college professors that bad things happened between 1980 and 1992, then nothing bad happened for 8 years. Then every evil in the world resumed between 2000 and 2008. I know we’re still not supposed to criticize the White House until the world’s longest 100 day honeymoon ends in 2012.

Given Obama’s failures, why does the left still feel a resounding victory just with Obama showing up? Because it was never about policies, given Obama’s speech to the Muslim world was so similar to Bush’s hand wringing that one wonders if they had the same speech-writer. We’re told that just Obama’s tone, his presence, his smooth leadership style is what makes the sale. But nothing is better with this president. Is this why he ran on Hope because that’s all I’m gonna get for four years?

I’m not impressed with his tone. I’d take great policies with horrible tone at this point. He reminds me of the Mommy-in-Chief promising to coddle every wound…real or perceived. He reaches out to apologize to Muslim countries I wasn’t aware we had sinned against. If anything, those governments should apologize to us for not being as great as America. Every country should apologize to their citizens for not being as great as this country. 

The Bush/Cheney policy was classic hawkism–that it’s better to be feared than loved. But who fears President Obama? All he needs is a powdered wig to go along with the beauty mark. Sure, he had the balls to shoot a teenage Somali pirate in the face but does he have steel will where we really need it, to take out the Kim Jong-Il family in the middle of the night? What regime in the world today is evil enough for him to change it? Tehran? Darfur?

Elites get real tough on enemies that don’t actually look you in the eye. They can talk real tough against big bad climate change because he won’t speak against them and blow up their embassies. President Obama took no time in his address to the Muslim world (Really? To every Muslim in the world? Will you ever address the Christian world?) to directly oppose Ahmadinejad. This is the new tone we’re all so excited about. Cowardice. Nuance. In the end I think the left just didn’t like a cowboy in the White House…just like the last one they hated.

Bin Laden has released another tape, Russia expands influence both in China and Europe all of whom lick their lips that a Chicago lawyer who loves being photographed in a swimsuit Jesus’d his way into the most powerful leadership position in the world. Fine we have a new tone. That’s a victory of astounding trivia.