Last year, documentary director Karen Price, daughter of Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), chronicled the 2006 Democrat house takeover in a revealing film called “HouseQuake.” While the documentary followed a handful of Democrat nominees as they ran for Congress, it focused more on the tactics of then-House campaign strategist Rahm Emanuel. It’s a solid documentary, but the film is really less of a story and more of a campaign study guide. As the New York Times said of the film last year, “For Republicans, it may be a lesson in how they can do to Mr. Emanuel what he did to them.” 

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Well, whether Republicans have learned from the Democrats in 2006 (and whether they even needed to, given today’s political climate), newcomer media company RightNetwork has. Beginning this month, RightNetwork is airing “Running,” an original series (available on demand) following eight candidates in their 2010 race for Congress. 

For two productions focusing on the same issue, the series is about as opposite of “HouseQuake” as conservatives are of liberals. 

First, while “HouseQuake” enjoys the perfect vision of hindsight, “Running” is the equivalent of a TLC reality show, with real heart, real drama – and real suspense. Where “HouseQuake” was more the educational tool, “Running” is the thriller, complete with the political suspense – and sometimes the political shenanigans – that Americans know and “love.” The pilot episode focuses on two California Republican challengers: Former stand-up comic Ari David, running for Henry Waxman’s 30th District seat; and successful small-businessman John Dennis, gunning for the seat of Nancy Pelosi herself. While “HouseQuake” played on viewers’ knowledge, boosting excitement through rally scenes and media coverage, “Running” gives the gritty – sometimes boring – details of campaign life, even before the primaries are decided. But these details are anything but boring in the expert hands of the “Running” production crew. In the pilot, the RNC has yet to step in, since it as of then doesn’t know who Republicans want to back.  (more…)

There has been a monsoon in Timbale. Anna, leader of the Visitors, intercedes with her technology. Questioned off the record, the Secretary General of the U.N. accuses Anna of “playing politics with tragedy. She used the people of Timbale to gain public and political clout.”

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

The former is an excerpt from the ABC television show ”V.”  The latter, the cynical assessment of President Obama’s consigliore and Chief of Staff Rham Emanuel of the economic crisis occurring in the United States.

An opportunity to do what things you think you could not do before?  Health care reform? Cap and tax? Government takeover of car companies, banks, and executive pay?

I think the remake of “V” currently showing on ABC must surely have been conceived as a metaphor. The alien visitors whose ships hover over multiple U.S. cities, and who plot to woo humans to join them to achieve their own veiled purpose, are equivalent to the current administration in Washington. Radicals, schooled by Saul Alinsky, affecting cleverly cultivated pleasing faces and voices. (more…)

Rahm Emanuel. (I’m shaking my head slowly).  It’s not his real name you know.  “Emmanuel” means “God with us” and that is not his real name.  It’s Auerbach.  Look it up. And…Rahm means “high” or “lofty.”  Mark Levin calls him “the creepy ballerina.”  I think he looks like the devil.  I’m just saying.  He talks like the devil.  I’m sure you heard that he called the Democrats “F—ing retards.”  Everyone got mad at the Retard word and no one got mad at the “F” word.  My dad said that people only make fun of the reproductive and excretory systems of the human body and no one should because God made the human body and it is a masterpiece.

What is it with all these people throwing the “F” word around like a basketball? (more…)

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SNL… They were doing so well for a while. It looked like rather than bending over for the administration, they were going to return to the irreverent brand of “take no prisoners” humor that has made them the political powerhouse that they are today. There was the infamous “Obama Deals with China” sketch, followed by a few subtle jabs at the POTUS, but it has ended there. In an attempt to remain politically relevant, SNL has decided to once again go after none other than Sarah Palin. At the very least, you have to respect them for being ballsy, right?

To the untrained eye, SNL’s recent “Rahm Emanuel Apology” sketch would seem to be poking fun at the chief-of-staff designate. To be fair, they make him look like a bit of a jerk (albeit still a smart one.) Personally I would have gone with the whole “he looks like Brad Garret on a heroin-bender” angle, but keep in mind that I’m a bi-partisan hack. The most notable part of the SNL piece had nothing to do with Emmanuel himself, but the jabs taken at Sarah Palin:

“You come after me on Facebook? What, are your fourteen? Here’s a status update: Grow the f–k up! Poke me again, and I will write s–t on your wall so obscene your computer will cry. Go back to the tundra, you f–king gimmick!”

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Obama’s Eleven (Scene 1: Framed from the back, bathed in the glaring kleig lights, a lonely lounge crooner stands at a microphone with a trenchcoat slung over his shoulder.)

VOICE-OVER
This is it. The big time. The main room at Uncle Sam’s Capitol Dome Casino. It took 20 years working every fleabag state bar and legislative lounge from Cambridge to Hyde Park, but now this singer is finally grabbing that little ol’ brass ring they call stardom.

That overnight sensation belting out the State of Union? None other than me, Barry Obama. Just a scrappy skinny kid from the mean streets of Honolulu with a silky baritone and a pocketful of dreams. Now I’ve got those high rollers eating straight from the ever-lovin’ palm of my hand. Little do they know I’ve got another dream — the craziest heist the D.C. strip has ever seen.

BARRY

Spend me to the moon, and let me play around with TARP,
Give the folks some stimulus so they can all buy cars.
In other words, cut the debt.
In other words, fiscal re-spons-i-bility.

Yeah!

Appropriate that cash, just like you’re Johnny Maynard Keynes,
We need jobs and health care and some light rail urban trains,
In other words, tighten belts.
In other words, ef-fic-i-ency.

Spend meeeeeee (hit it boys) to the moooo-oooo-oooooon!

Look-out-Old-Barry’s-back!

(Crowd cheers) (more…)

Images have power. Propaganda and marketing are based on the power of the image and the thoughts and feelings that the image conveys. A photo op pulled off well can make a politician’s career. A photo op done badly will torpedo it.

Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank destroyed his presidential run. So is the power of imagery.

When I was a teenager a street artist named Robbie Conal put up grotesque pictures around Los Angeles of Ronald Reagan and his cabinet members like James Watt and Ed Meese.

These images had power over the long term and many street posters by Conal, other artists, a left-wing media and academia all worked in aggregate to change West LA which was Reagan’s home district to the left-wing bastion of “people’s republics” communities it is today. I am not asserting that Conal alone had this affect, but in interviews from the mid-eighties, Conal clearly stated that it was his goal to change public perception and public opinion with his art. (more…)

Whenever I hear people outside the administration prattle on about how evil and biased Fox News is, I know I am listening to a flock of parrots who have never even tuned in. As a conservative myself, I have a number of problems with the network. For one thing, I resent Bill O’Reilly’s ridiculing those who merely ask for documentation that their president was born in the United States, and I also wish he’d stop defending Obama against charges that he’s a Socialist or worse. If it walks, swims and quacks like a duck, Bill, it’s a safe bet that you can pop it in the oven and serve it at Christmastime.

I’d also appreciate it if Sean Hannity would wake up to the fact that a lot of us change the channel the second that Bob Beckel shows up on the Great American Panel.

On the other hand, I wish that merely as an experiment a dozen or so liberals could be forced to watch Glenn Beck for an entire week. I would be dying to know how they would react after watching videos of Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunn, Andy Stern and John Holdren spouting off when they think nobody outside the room will hear about their plans to transform America.  They would have made Dr. Frankenstein blanch but put a smile on Karl Marx’s ugly mug. (more…)

Amy Rice and Alicia Sams’ documentary, “By the People,” provides a lens into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.  A guided tour of sorts, the film delves into the Obama’s biggest milestones, while ignoring glaring contradictions and blemishes.  Perhaps two words can best describe it: snooze fest.  Teamed with the films vapidity and its lack of new, unexplored material, there are some intriguing conflicts of interest surrounding its production.

“By the People” is a praise initiative that doesn’t offer much beyond what politicos and Obama enthusiasts already know: Obama was a regular Joe who, through a series of (unfortunate for the American people) events, captured the presidency.

While Hollywood’s insane obsession with anything and anyone left of center is never a surprise, one should ardently question why HBO, after purchasing the film for seven figures, has chosen to ignore other intriguing political stories.  Why not balance the film with another special or documentary that explores the McCain-Palin campaign?  One could argue, as I’m sure HBO would, that the focus of the film is on to the winning candidate.  Fine.  Argue away, but anyone with a pulse knows we’d be hard pressed to see a similar accolade to a Republican victor.  Furthermore, Sarah Palin’s initial book sales prove that she’s a brand worth exploring.  So, why not go for it? (more…)

So I wake up groggy and after getting my morning green tea –- yeah, I seem to be going through that phase — coffee doesn’t go well with global warming. Anyway, I start the computer and begin my ritual of clearing out emails; a daunting but necessary task where depending on my time and interest I sometimes randomly open something to read.  

If your mailbox is like mine you receive an overwhelming amount of political stuff and reading it all can be a time-suck of enormous proportions. Let’s face it, if you don’t derive your living from this stuff, no matter how much of a concerned citizen you may be, there comes a point where you have to say, “Ah, is this paying my mortgage?” That’s reality biting you in the ass and so the knee-jerk reaction is to press delete and move on to something that may add a few more dollars to your already crumbling retirement fund. But, and I stress BUT, like the” pusher man” (remember that song, G** D**** the Pusher Man?) who you cannot seem to get away from, the sheer volume of political noise coming at you can’t be ignored and after just one peek … aaahhh your fix takes hold.   (more…)

SNL finally took on Obama in earnest this weekend:

This sketch wasn’t aimed at Rahm Emanuel, Joe the Biden, or Tim Geithner… it was targeting the Man himself.  But did SNL really turn over a new leaf?  Nope.  The criticism leveled at Obama was that he is failing to execute the brilliantly conceived left-wing aspects of his agenda as stated in his campaign.  Of course, there is no casting judgment on those ideas and no mention that most of America doesn’t actually support them.

This is a tactic Bill Maher has mastered.  He has repeatedly leveled humorous critique at Obama, but the arguments always hinge around Obama not behaving like the left-winger we thought we elected. (more…)

This week’s Washington Times column:

There is an extensive body of writing from both sides of the political aisle that has analyzed the extraordinary depths of hatred leveled at former President George W. Bush.

His birth into a wealthy and politically connected family is where a lot of the animus starts. His rejection of his Connecticut roots and adoption of a rugged Texan persona naturally riled his birth-constituency. His disjointed speaking style also alienated many others – especially those who covered him in the Northeastern media. Naturally, some of his initiatives were controversial. His allies say he didn’t do enough.

But all presidents make mistakes, pursue unpopular ideas, possess off-putting personality traits and don’t do enough to appeal to their core supporters. Something far more insidious was at work in the hatred of our most recent former president.

Now that Mr. Bush is quietly going about his retirement, this strain of rage – the GWB43 virus – has spread like wildfire, finding unsuspecting targets, each granting us greater perspective into what not long ago seemed like a mysterious phenomenon isolated only on our 43rd president.

The first person to catch the virus was Sarah Palin, whose family also was infected, including, unforgivably, her children.

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The Brothers Emanuel: Ari (L) – Rahm (R)

July 31st, 2006 – Hollywood, California:

At a time of escalating tensions in the world, the entertainment industry cannot idly stand by and allow Mel Gibson to get away with such tragically inflammatory statements. People in the entertainment community, whether Jew or gentile, need to demonstrate that they understand how much is at stake in this by professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him, even if it means a sacrifice to their bottom line. There are times in history when standing up against bigotry and racism is more important than money.

That is a portion of a Huffington Post entry authored by a prominent Hollywood talent agent. It was written exactly two years ago this week after the arrest of actor Mel Gibson. During the stop, an angry and intoxicated Gibson made physical threats and was reported to say, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” and asked the arresting officer, “Are you a Jew?” (more…)

A while back, I heard Obama bragging about his first few months in the White House.  When he claimed he had done as much in that period as any president in history, my initial thought was for the first time in his life he was being modest.  Frankly, I think he’s done more, much more, and I only wish that some of it had been good for America.

He’s taken over car companies, banks and lending institutions.  He’s printed so much currency that he’s the envy of counterfeiters and con men everywhere.  He’s buried the nation in so much debt that children born 40 years down the road will be greeted with a slap on the butt and a lien on future earnings.  For good measure, the Community Organizer in Chief has created more czars than the Romanovs. (more…)

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Any clear thinking media gazer can tell you Newsweek magazine has tilted to the left in recent months. Not that it ever was a fair and balanced media organ to start with, mind you. But Newsweek managing editor Jon Meacham told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly this week that his magazine doesn’t have a liberal agenda. Really? Then how do you explain the latest issue featuring a “Star Wars”/”Star Trek” casting sidebar ripped from today’s political headlines?

The magazine, in a fit of adolescent whimsy, casts real-life political figures who might stand in for Captain Kirk, Darth Vader and other characters from the space franchises’ galaxies. (more…)