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Thingish Things

Did Robert Reich Just Signal Hillary’s Willingness to Run for VP?

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 29•11

Former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich revived speculation today that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden will trade places for the 2012 election. I can’t help seeing this as more an official floating of the idea than a thinking aloud piece from Mr. Reich, who enjoys a long friendship and professional relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton. (These pages first speculated a VP switch last March.)

Mr. Reich is no dummy.  He knows his words carry weight.  In saying “I think Hillary and Joe will trade places,” he is really saying, “Hillary and Joe should change places, and Mrs. Clinton is up for it.”  

He argues the merits of a job switch well:

“Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.

“Moreover, the economy won’t be in superb shape in the months leading up to Election Day. Indeed, if the European debt crisis grows worse and if China’s economy continues to slow, there’s a better than even chance we’ll be back in a recession. Clinton would help deflect attention from the bad economy and put it on foreign policy, where she and Obama have shined. 

“The deal would also make Clinton the obvious Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 — offering the Democrats a shot at twelve (or more) years in the White House, something the Republicans had with Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush but which the Democrats haven’t had since FDR. Twelve years gives the party in power a chance to reshape the Supreme Court as well as put an indelible stamp on America.”

This switch may need to happen if President Obama is to have any reasonable chance of remaining Chief Executive.  Today’s Rasmussen Poll shows Mitt Romney leading Mr. Obama 45-39 nationally, but the situation is worse for the President when one investigates poll numbers state by state.  If the election were to be held today, President Obama would lose badly. 

Joe Biden brings nothing to the Obama ticket, other than a familiar face.  But Biden’s is not one that engenders a whole lot of confidence. He was chosen in 2008 for his gray hairs, but President Obama now has gray hairs of his own.

The Obama Administration continues to maintain that a Hillary Clinton-Joe Biden switcheroo has been ruled out, but today’s Robert Reich piece suggests it has not been.  Indeed, the idea clearly is very much still alive.

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‘War Horse’ Gets 3 1/2 Blackberries (Out of Five)

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 29•11

Are film reviewers part of an inside Hollywood job, like stock analysts were at the big Wall Street banks before being exposed? Or do they just feel obligated to write nice things about venerable directors?

Those are questions I find myself asking after leaving Steven Spielberg’s latest, “War Horse,” which opened to preposterously good reviews.

Don’t believe them.  They’re bunk.  Here’s the truth: “War Horse,” which tells the story of a boy and a horse in and around World War I, is – how should I say this? – not very good. Sure it’s shot well.  All Spielberg creations are.  But “War Horse” seems more like an academic exercise in trying to reproduce the look and feel of a John Ford movie than a serious attempt at making something special or original.

Ever hear the old expression “a cliché wrapped in a stereotype?”  Well that’s “War Horse,” wrapped in an extra cliché or two.  The scenes are absurdly overacted, almost Lassie-come-home-like. The sweeping music refuses to stop sweeping.  And the skies are out of “The Wizard of Oz.”  The movie is all affectation and no substance. The plot and premise – YES, I KNOW IT’S BASED ON A PLAY – are so utterly fantastical that Tim Burton might have taken a better crack at them than Spielberg.

“War Horse” is not awful.  It’s far from it.  It’s just not compelling, but that’s exactly what a movie with such over-the-top artistry needs to be.  The film is billed as being “A Gripping Tale of Loyalty and Bravery,” but is instead, I dare say, just a little dull.

I read three reviews before seeing “War Horse” that mentioned the need to bring Kleenex to the theater.  But I have to say in all honesty that I have felt more emotion opening a good can of tuna fish.  Sincerely.  By movie’s end I could not have cared less whether that horse ended up at Yonkers Raceway or a glue factory, nor did I care for a single one of the human characters.

Movie reviewers like Rex Reed, A. O. Scott, and others were either smoking pot in the back seat of their theater watching this film or they are kissing up to Stephen Spielberg.  One suspects it’s the latter. If “War Horse” ends up receiving 13 Academy Award nominations, it’s a fix.  Call in Eliot Spitzer. 

War Horse: 3 1/2 Blackberries.

(Making this blog up as I go along.  So what the heck, I’ll throw a movie review in every now and then.) 

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The Newt Bubble — and Temper — Go ‘Pop’

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 28•11

So much for staying above the fray.

The constitutionally acerbic Newt Gingrich, who promised to remain positive in the Republican presidential primaries, but who is now falling in the polls like an April barometer, is unleashing his pent up frustrations this week with fury. Mr. Gingrich and his campaign are accusing Mitt Romney of being a “European socialist” and Ron Paul of being racist, anti-Semitic, out of the mainstream “to all decent people,” etc., etc. One gets the feeling that if Mr. Gingrich had a dog, he might have kicked it this week.

This is pure Gingrich. The stuff that drives him — the vitriol he has managed to bottle and leave on a shelf throughout the autumn — has spilled out of its container for all to see. It is the acid that will melt his candidacy alive, just as it melted down his Speakership in Congress a decade and a half ago.

One recalls the Newt Gingrich of the 1990’s tormented to be relegated — and sequestered from the press corps — to the back of Air Force One on a trip home to the U.S. from Israel by then President Bill Clinton. The snub infuriated Mr. Gingrich so much that, by his own admission, it helped lead to the government shut-down that put Republicans across the country out of office in the next election cycle.

Mitt Romney rubbed salt into Mr. Gingrich’s wounds yesterday by comparing the former Georgia congressman’s inability to get on the ballot in Virginia to Lucille Ball in the famous  “I Love Lucy” chocolate-factory episode. Mr. Romney did so at risk of looking mean himself, but with Newt Gingrich in full tantrum, it may prove to be a sound strategy.  When Newt is being Newt, he can say anything. 

Mr. Gingrich was much-criticized for embarking on a Greek cruise just days after announcing his presidential candidacy.  It might be advisable now, however, for the hot-headed former Speaker to return to ship for the next couple of weeks before he does himself any more damage.  Right now, Mr. Gingrich is an anger-addict out of control. 

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New Yorker of the Week, Charles Hermansen

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 27•11

Is it ever worth it to spite yourself to make a point? Charles Hermansen thinks it is. The Staten Island restaurateur permanently shuttered his eatery’s doors this week to protest what he believed to be constant harassment from the New York City Health Department, according to today’s New York Post.

Mr. Hermansen is now without an income-producing business, but he doesn’t have to take any more cr*p from the nit-picking inspectors. Fair trade?  It very well may be for the blissful satisfaction of figuratively flipping his tormentors the bird.  (Anyone want to make a bet that the former Italian restaurant owner will open another place, along with the jobs it produced, in New Jersey or elsewhere?)  

Charles Hermansen.  Maybe not the smartest businessman, but a principled one. Gotta love him.

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The Christmas Truce

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 25•11

It began with Christmas Carols on the night of December 24, 1914.  They were first sung in German, but soon spilled over the German lines, across “No Man’s Land” and into the Allied trenches, where they were carried in English and in French, three languages improbably joining across a battlefield in song. What resulted became known as The Christmas Truce of 1914.  All along the Western Front, French, English and other Allied soldiers, tentatively at first, and then by the thousands, joined their German enemies in the open field to share the Christmas spirit, trade what little they had, and bury their dead together.  In at least one instance a soccer ball materialized and a match ensued. The Truce went throughout Christmas Day, to the consternation of much of the military brass, and then, as quickly as it began, it ended.

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Best Buy Talks Smack; Santa Fires Back

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 24•11

Best Buy's Big Mistake

Any honest sports fan will look you in the eye and tell you with absolute certainty that there is, in fact, such a thing as a jinx. As sure as there is a God, there is a way to negatively affect the outcome of a sporting match. The culprit usually is arrogance.

There are some things one simply doesn’t say before or during a game. “Johnson’s hands are glue; he hasn’t dropped a touchdown pass in twenty-seven weeks,” is an example of one of them. Johnson may be without a thumb by halftime. One should never shout, “We tied it up!” after a touchdown drive — but before the extra point is kicked — just as surely as a shipbuilder would never declare his latest creation “unsinkable.” (See RMS Titanic, 1912-1912.)

I couldn’t help thinking in watching this holiday season’s Best Buy ad campaign, “Game-On-Santa,”  that the electronic outlet was toying dangerously with the same lock tumblers in the sky. Best Buy was outright messing with Santa Clause in its ads, suggesting preposterously that it could compete, and  outdo, Kris Kringle’s prowess as a gift giver. The ad campaign got under my skin — I am deeply loyal to Santa Clause — and I hated myself a little while standing in line at Best Buy with an armful of items waiting to be rung up.

But the forces of the universe took care of Best Buy after all. Soon after those ads went on the air, supernatural gremlins — let’s call them elves — set about their work in gunking up Best Buy’s fulfillment systems.  Thousands of online orders never got shipped, customers went ballistic, and Best Buy took a public relations beating that $100 million in advertising won’t cure.

I wouldn’t say that Santa and his elves are malicious, but they are, perhaps, just a little territorial.  Or maybe just competitive. Game on, Best Buy.  

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Ron Paul’s Turn

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 23•11

http://youtu.be/LywD6gXBudc

If you run to be President of the United States, you have to be scrutinized, down to the very last word. It’s now Ron Paul’s turn to be vetted in the news media, and lingering words from old newsletters published under his name are fair game. 

The language in the newsletters is racist, and Paul has long denied that he penned the words.  In a CNN interview yesterday, he defended himself, saying he had “six or seven” employees at the time he was publishing the news letters, one or more than one of whom wrote the offensive remarks.  

I like and respect Ron Paul for his convictions, but that’s not good enough.  The subscription newsletters were published by him.  If he didn’t write the language in question, we need to know who did.  Mr. Paul is running to be President of the United States, and he is being taken seriously by the press. He needs to give a serious answer, and that means providing a name or names. 

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Come Into the Light…

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 23•11

from quite-rightly.blogspot.com

Progress in Congress. The incandescent light bulb has been saved for at least a year. Thanks to the efforts of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Department of Energy funding to hunt down and kill anyone manufcaturing, using — or even looking at — an old light bulb has been eliminated. Chalk one up for the American people.

I may celebrate by going out and buying another new fluorescent bulb, because they last longer and are more energy efficient — not because I have to.

The Daily Mail here reports, though, that the new-found life for the old, far-less-expensive bulbs may be short-lived. U.S. and other light bulb manufacturers have already paid hundreds of millions of dollars thanks to the government mandate — don’t worry; those costs are being passed on to us — to retrofit their factories for the fluorescent numbers.

Let me guess what might happen… Think the Vietnamese or the Chinese or the Laotions might begin manufacturing cheap, old light bulbs for U.S. consumers, like the ones U.S. companies were making a few year ago?  You know, the ones Thomas Edison invented.

It would be so very American of those communist countries to do so. And what of us?

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Thinking Ahead on Ron Paul

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 22•11

Thinking aloud.

If Leon Panetta meant what he said in his interview with CBS’s Scott Paley on Tuesday — I can’t believe Panetta’s remarks weren’t the lead story in every newspaper in America Wednesday — the United States and Israel will be at war with Iran and its transnational surrogate Hezbollah by the autumn of 2012. (Here are Panetta’s unequivocal words if you missed them.)

Hezbollah has established terror cells throughout the United States and Europe, and the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities presumambly would activate them (see Lighting Out of Lebanon, Random House, 2005 .) In other words, it would be very unlikely that the bombing of Iran would be a standalone event.

Such a development would radically alter the nature of the 2012 presidential campaign. And that change in focus would begin to occur well before any bombing occurred. There is always rhetorical and logistical build up to military action (The President would need to sell the thing to his countrymen and to The Arab League.)

Only one Republican candidate has come out in opposition to bombing Iran, and that’s neo-isolationist Ron Paul. And only one Republican candidate has the kind of committed support necessary to run a third-party candidacy, Ron Paul. The Texas congressman has legions of young libertarians available to do the hard work of getting him on the ballot in all or most of the 50 states.

If Mr. Paul were to run a third-party candidacy, the question then is “who would he draw support from?” The immediate assumption would be the Republican candidate. But as the single anti-war candidate in the field, Mr. Paul might also tap into pacifistic Democrats. On foreign policy issues, Mr. Paul would be running to President Obama’s left (and possibly to the right of the Republican on fiscal issues.)

Ron Paul is a throw-back to a pre-World War II Republican Party. He is a small-government conservative who appeals to young voters alarmed by the debt being heaped upon them, and a mind-your-own-business isolationist who appeals to conscription-aged young people tired of war. It’s an interesting combination, and one with the potential to ignite on college campuses. 

One wouldn’t expect this subset of voters to represent anything nearing a plurality,  but it could significantly alter the national conversation and the 2012 elections.

Just thinking aloud.

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Quote of the Day, George Will

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Dec• 22•11

from charlierose.com

“Gingrich’s unsurprising descent into sinister radicalism — intimidation of courts — is redundant evidence that he is not merely the least conservative candidate, he is thoroughly anti-conservative. He disdains the central conservative virtue, prudence, and exemplifies progressivism’s defining attribute — impatience with impediments to the political branches’ wielding of untrammeled power. He exalts the will of the majority of the moment, at least as he, tribune of the vox populi, interprets it.” — George Will, 12-22-11, syndicated column.

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