There will be a few blank blog days over the next couple of weeks as I rush around the country doing my best to spread the good word and, perhaps, if I am lucky, to make a living!
Today’s blog is brief due to the pressure of other writing commitments. It seems as if I have touched some nerves with my comments regarding the rationale of Oliver Stone and his pals in the making of his film W, about America’s outgoing President George W Bush.
Make of it what you will; here is a selection of reactions received today.
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve
To: tdklinger@aol.com
Sent: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:02 pm
Amen Tony. I could not agree more. You also might note that the mainstream media now operates with the exact same mindset. I find it laughable that so many on the "left" despise the Fox News network. That is because they are the ONLY network that actually is Fair and Balanced. The bottom line is if you do not march lockstep with the liberal left you are a pariah. Keep up the work. Thanks, Steve
Thanks Steve, You should see the attacks I got from my more vitriolic left leaning friends. They truly believe that any other viewpoint is some kind of heresy. This is America's truly frightening first glimpse of the kind of British political correctness we've had to suffer these last twelve years. Now the buggers tell us how to eat, exercise and soon, no doubt, make whoopee.
Tony
It was a bit of a crank screed on Oliver Stone and the meds...and I hope it goes increasingly in that direction for entertainment's sake. Making a distorting and stupid film about Bush is redundant. You say that Bush getting into an Ivy league was not about his father--OF COURSE IT WAS. It's well known that he barely scraped a C average together at Yale and the stories are fairly legendary at this point. His application was tagged "Alumni" with the annual dollar donation--that's how Ivy leagues work, especially for terrible students like Bush. As you probably got from Stone, he was very interested in getting jumped into skull and bones which gives you a better idea of what these places are all about--networking. People like him are everywhere at Cornell--surreally uncurious, incompetent, and unfit for higher learning--but private schools are status symbols designed to jump the progeny of stupid wealthy fuckers into the system. The baseball team, the oil --the guy is a classic East coast prep school washout who reinvented himself as a Texan, which probably is closer to his sensibilities. It doesn't change the fact that he ought to be wearing rumpled khaki and hanging around on a yacht--he's been handed everything but the presidency. On that score, it's not necessary to rehash how he got in...except to say that his "folksy" shtick was recently copped by Palin, and the door was opened to this sort of low-watt intellectual stuff by Reagan whose most staunch conservative backers (Buckley, George Will etc.) openly conceded that Reagan was uninterested by anything resembling a detail. Their point was that eggheads don't do well historically in the presidency--bring in the dumb shit who is "tuned" into the party line and people, and who embodies the volk and the fatherland with an American exceptionalist poetics. It worked for Hitler...
You could argue, and many have, that a dull-witted ideologue who knows how to delegate, keep it simple, surround him/herself with good people might actually be more effective that an intellectual. That is the Reagan/Bush/Palin gambit. I would disagree with that however, and it seems the country (at least for now) has overcome its anti-intellectual streak to hire an egghead again.
I think it's important to watch how the word "stupid" is thrown around. Carter was far from stupid, but he got a bad start by overestimating his clout with congress--his filibuster proof majority included southern dixie-crats who turned on him and he never recovered. This identical mistake was Clinton's--although Clinton readjusted. Clinton of course was a Rhodes scholar and Obama is not with him there, although close in some respects for his rhetoric and as a delegator. You could say that academic excellence does not necessarily translate into political skills in Washington, although even there you would be in trouble...Johnson was an effective legislator and very brilliant.
I think the concern for Republicans with their heads screwed on is how not to be the party of white dumb shits. The demographics from this latest election show democratic gains everywhere in the country across all categories--except in the Deep South. There are a lot of smart conservatives out there, but they tend to be more secular--and that's a problem.
Brad.
My response:
I do concur that it was as President that Carter was a dimwit, as he actually had about the highest IQ score of all the Presidents. I do think that the job of President is to deal with the bigger picture and that those that get too engrossed in detail are bound to fail, as there are simply too many details for any human to deal with.
I don't think that President George W Bush is as dumb as he is portrayed by the movie, and I don't think that President Elect Obama is the Messiah that the left is painting him. I think he'd agree with that, and would like it if the expectation levels were lessened right now, as it will lead to unrealistic expectations, which he will fail to meet. I don't believe you need an egghead in the White House, any more than a General needs to be a great brain, for those jobs you need the right instincts, some great strategy and a whole lot of luck.
In the end it is the perception that makes the legacy, and I think it is the left who are the most mean spirited, and the right that is the dumbest. Hopefully Obama can rise gracefully above all this a bit like a superpower Cicero with the balls of a Thatcher, and despite her being a woman she really did have big balls!
I am not sure that America voted for what makes Obama interesting, his intellect being part of that, but they certainly did vote against a continuation of what Bush was, but, and this should be remembered, only by about 6%.
Tony
From: Marjorie
Subject: Re: http://bcreativelimited.com/ LiarsandLoweringStandards
IN response to your disgust for your fellow men who are lacking in fastidiousness, may I suggest you offer free disinfectant packets to them on the way out?
Maybe you can invest in a few and always have them on hand?
(LOL)
I actually thought W was very sympathetic to George W. In fact he made him a more 'likeable' person, instead of the 'lizard-like/cold blooded war monger impression I had before.
Hi M,
I haven't reviewed the film yet, just the lies surrounding the film. I don't share your position about it being sympathetic to George W as he is neither a lizard nor an idiot.
Tony
From: Stephen
Sent: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 5:20 pm
Subject: W Blog
F… ing brilliant. Here here you are right on but don’t you know TK almost every artist is narcissist and thinks he is the creator of a unique ideology of the world. It is pathetic...We must allow our critics their say and opinions. Some of the right and left are like religious zealots only they get key to the kingdom. Only they are right. They tolerate no disagreement or criticism and to me that in un-American and awful.
Love Stevie
Thanks Stevie,
I am already taking flack from the left leaners who cannot see that I might be one of them, but the fact is that I respect the truth!
Tony
I have now reviewed the film W at
http://www.tonyklinger.co.uk/
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
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