Monk

WASHINGTON – Months after its debut, "Hillary: The Movie" faces nine of the nation's toughest critics: the Supreme Court.

The justices' review of the slashing documentary financed by longtime critics of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton could bring more than just a thumbs up or thumbs down. It may settle the question of whether the government can regulate a politically charged film as a campaign ad.

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Bossie said Moore's success is what inspired him. "Michael Moore forced me to recognize the power of documentary film," said Bossie, who was involved in the House's investigation of Bill Clinton that led to the president's impeachment and trial.

-- Jesse J. Holland for the Associated Press

When I was first readig the article, I was trying to think what made this different from, say, Michael Moore's films, which I recall being run at politically sensitive times. But then one reads that it was an issue that was resolved when Moore said that he wouldn't run ads during the campaign season. I imagine another difference might be that Moore's films are more amusing, but I haven't seen "Hillary: The Movie."

In any case, I prefer to err on the side of free speech, and would favor just the regulation that the financial backers and the parties involved in the film be known, that this should not be an intolerable demand for any movie doing business in our land, much less ostensibly political movies. Just give us more information and transparency so people know what they are seeing.

At any rate, we should be seeing a lot more Republican porn in the future. This guy, Bossie, says that he has fifteen more films in the loop, one of them titled "Stimulate This" about the recent stimulus package pushed by the Obama administration.

Personally, I don't care for Moore's films, save for his first big one, "Roger and Me", and I don't expect I will care for Bossie's artistic efforts either. If I want to watch porn, it needs to have some hot babes getting down and dirty, and although I gather that there are indeed some Hillary-inspired porn movies along those lines, Bossie's movie is not one of them.

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March 24, 2009

An other AP story brings out the fact that the campaign laws do not apply to DVDs, theaters, or the Internet, which explains why Michael Moore's movies were only questioned anent the TV ads for his movies. It also goes to show that Moore can at least get his films aired in theaters, though I suppose some hardline conservatives would retort that only goes to show how liberal the media is, save the miracle of talk radio.

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I just read the Ruth Bader Ginsburg story in "The Nine", and Hillary's wanting a woman on the Court had nothing to do with the nomination!?

I'm reminded of why I would hate to be without the Internet. I suppose once that Hillary angle was gushed out, it became the irresistible storyline for the talking heads. It hurts my heart to think of someday being limited to TV for my news, as well as the local paper. I might never have heard of "The Nine"!

Okay, that's overstating it. Since Jeffrey Toobin is on the CNN cast, I would have heard of it, but you could characterize that as a lucky fluke.

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Rupert Murdock has yet to put the Wall Street Journal officially under his name, but even at seventy-six years of age, he is still a hard-driving, take charge kind of business guy. And he is definitely gunning for the New York Times, bringing the Fox-CNN rivalry to the big newspaper game.

( article )

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People will bemoan what Murdoch does to the Journal, no matter what it is. They will say that he is killing a great newspaper. But the sad part of this story is that "the empire," as we reporters once liked to call it, was already dying -- and that so many of its wounds were self-inflicted.

-- David Ignatius for The Washington Post

Rupert Murdoch got the Wall Street Journal, confirming definitively that he is a man who gets what he wants. There were reports of a snag and struggle not long before the deal was closed, and one can only imagine what pressures were applied, but the big man won.

David Ignatius used to report for that paper, and he has an interesting account of some of the history, pointing out that the Journal had been getting more ideologically opinionated since the mid-eighties, suggesting that Murdoch may not be so much a revolutionary change but one just bringing a tragic-drama to its natural conclusion.

And just like we have CNN and Fox News, now we have The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. It would seem that we have become more polarized and less given to the idealism of a pure objectivity. Let the debates go on and long live democracy!

( Ignatius )

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Rupert Murdoch's bid to attain The Wall Street Journal is going full steam ahead and seems to be all but a done deal. Paul Krugman has some choice words about this prospect.

( Krugman column )

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I have had my fill of Tucker Carlson.

Some frat types have been in trouble for a party game in which people were awarded for catching among the student bodies those posing as illegal immigrants - wetbacks.

Tucker spent a segment of his show this afternoon challenging guests to answer why this game was racist, as the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties have held in condemning the game.

I used to feel a little sorry for Tucker. He always seemed on the verge of dropping out of the glamour ranks of TV punditry, and sometimes has fallen out, and I thought he was sharp and very quick-minded. Maybe he is only feeling the pressure to stay on MSNBC and is trying to buff up his credentials for a position at Fox. But I'll just go back to Wolf Blitzer.

I understand his point, but I prefer more solid news and political discussion.

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WE'RE ALL PART of the pop culture world. Whether you think you are or not, whether you want to be or not, no matter how aloof and superior you feel, even if the Atlantic and Foreign Affairs are the only things you keep in your bathroom, you're as much a part of the celebrity culture as the booker on The View. Deal with it. As Gregory Peck said to David Niven in The Guns of Navarone, "You're in it now . . . up to your neck."

-- Larry Miller for The Weekly Standard

Oh, it's not so bad. This is in response to all the media hoopla over the death of the luxuriously busty Anna Nicole. Are we supposed to wallow in war, global warming, and New Orleans all the time? It's not like it would help. There is nothing wrong with a little celebrity gossip and sex to lighten the days. If the occasional nipple slip or the starlet getting out of a car in a miniskirt sans panties affords our primate-protagonist a little joy, so much the better.

( HOTNESS Alert: Nude Anna Nicole )

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Apparently, we are getting ever more comfortable with our more private consumer needs, with advertising agents leading the way with their commercials. An example:

Most recently, ads for the digital home-pregnancy test kit sold by Clearblue Easy have broken a taboo on urination in public. In commercials created by a New York agency named Amalgamated, liquid that is ostensibly urine streams onto what at first looks like something futuristic.

A male voice intones, “Introducing the most sophisticated piece of technology ... you will ever pee on.”

I guess Texas must be behind the curve on this. I do not watch much network television, but I cannot imagine such an ad making it on the Lord's air over here. This strikes me as being more of a European thing, one of the ways in which one supposes they are indeed more culturally advanced than we.


(Source: Nina M. Lentini for The New York Times)

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