Andrew Breitbart: Mall Cop

I’ve generally given up posting about Greg Gutfeld’s (ugh) “Gregologues,” in part because they mostly conform to a link-oneliner-plug format that doesn’t leave a lot of room for discussion, and in part because he’s the one member of Big Hollywood‘s sub-Caroline-in-the-City comedy team who at least tries to crack jokes instead of acting like creepy, seething, passive-aggression is comedy.  Maybe he’s only tolerable relative to the likes of Crowder, Jena, or Hudnall, but I’ve developed a bit of a soft spot for the big lug.

It must also be said, in the interest of giving credit where credit’s due, that Gutfeld is generally judicious when singling out figures or initiatives or soundbites from the left that are worthy of mockery.  My usual reaction to his column goes something like, “Wow, it’s a little sad that Greg is 35 and still pining for the ol’ frat days, but yeah, that was a silly thing Obama said, there.”

Today, though he’s getting his smirk on because there’s a harmless GOTV video where Obama doesn’t pander enough to “middle-aged white dudes”:

So, for this upcoming November election, here’s an idea to help restore American strength and prosperity. White middle-aged men must band together and throw the idiots out.

That’s all there is to it.

At least, if I follow President Obama’s lead. For, in his mind, his victory requires splitting the populace apart – and only these folks matter: young people, African Americans, Latinos, and women.

I like how Gutfeld acts like “white middle-aged men must band together and throw the idiots out”  hasn’t been his employer’s plan since, oh, I don’t know, Tax Day ’09.  But that shit aside, the video Gutfeld links to is completely harmless.  Obama talks about engaging and energizing people who didn’t normally vote before 2008, who came out specifically for him, and who are now in danger of slipping back into apathy.

Yes, that largely means women, black, Latinos, and young people.  Now, it may surprise Gutfeld to learn that women alone account for over 50% of the population.  Shocking!  I did a quick-and-dirty calculation based on census data, and those groups combined account for about 72% of the US population.

But Obama actually spent two minutes directly addressing the majority of Americans, while not addressing its most privileged sub-sub-sub-group, “middle-aged white dudes,” so clearly he’s a racist.

Acknowledging that people other than “middle-aged white dudes” exist is not the same as excluding them!  Is Gutfeld so used to seeing “middle-aged white dudes” pandered to that he can’t see the difference?  Guys, he works for Fox.

When Victoria Jackson kept displaying a brand of insanity that’s weird and disturbing even relative to her Big Hollywood cohorts, I had sort of assumed, perhaps naively, that John Nolte would eventually just change her login password and stop answering her emails.

I don’t respect much about Nolte’s writing or editing, but it can at least be said about him that he takes conservatism seriously, and wants to advance its interests.  So I’d thought a sideshow hot mess like Jackson would eventually get cut out, if for no other reason than that she makes them all look fucking crazy.

Silly Blucas, what were you thinking?  This is the far-right, where one can only fail upward, so of course Victoria Jackson’s joined up with the Tea Party Express, and has been traveling the country on the GOP’s dime. Being a low-level GOP-shill has its advantages, of course, one of which is the ability to come within poking distance of Sarah Palin:

Happy mayhem surrounds Sarah Palin.  Pushing, snapping, hugging.  I couldn’t get near her if I tried, so I just stood in the back watching the circus.  At one point, I couldn’t resist, while she was signing Ron Rivoli’s guitar, I reached out my arm through the crowd and touched her red jacket with my finger!

There is, in fact, PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE of Jackson’s creepy-subway-groper behavior:

Uhhhh, that’s her, in back left next to the bumper sticker, straining her neck to get into the shot.

But hey, we all have celebrities we’d spaz out over if we got to attend something like this with them, so I won’t make fun of her too much over this.  And if this were a dorky “ZOMG SARAH!!! DRILL BABY DRILL!! DRILL THOSE COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS RIGHT IN THE FACE!!!” bit by Jackson, I probably wouldn’t have posted about it.  It’s the weird, out-of-nowhere detour about race that really makes it awesome:

There were a few protesters on the outskirts of our rallies, but I only saw one up close.  In Albany, NY standing next to a statue of George Washington was an angry black woman holding a sign that said, “Yes, We Can.”  She looked very angry.  The media was on her like flies.  They got shots of our Tea Party crowd with her in the foreground.  I was asked to pose next to her for a group shot.  I kept glancing at her face.  It takes a lot of energy to keep a frown that long.  Finally, I asked her, “Why are you so angry?”  She whipped her head around,  her eyes on fire with hate, and snarled, “Don’t talk to me, Whitey.”  I walked away slowly, wondering why she was so mad at me.

I suspect she doesn’t like white people.

I used to think that black people didn’t like me because of the slavery thing a hundred years ago.  But, I just learned from Lloyd Marcus’ book “Confessions of a Black Conservative” that blacks are taught since the day they are born that “Whitey is keeping them down.”  No wonder why she hates me.  She doesn’t know it is a Liberal lie.

Now, while I do think that “Don’t talk to me, Whitey,” is a perfectly reasonable, measured response to being approached by Victoria Jackson, I’ll eat my hat if this woman actually said “Whitey.”  Do black people even say that anymore?  I’m pretty sure Victoria Jackson is getting reality confused with bad movies from the ’70s again.

In Lloyd Marcus’ book he talks about growing up in the “projects.”  He says that his family moved into a brand new building that within two years was filthy and dangerous.  Lloyd says, “All I kept hearing from the majority of adults was that everything was the ‘white man’s fault.’  Even at the tender age of nine, I sarcastically thought to myself, ‘How can we stop these evil white people from sneaking in here at night, peeing in the stairwell, leaving broken wine bottles on the ground, smashing the light bulbs, and attacking people.’”

He explains that the “liberal cradle-to-grave government dependency programs kill incentive and ultimately hurt people.  Meanwhile, Conservatism is branded as mean and heartless.  What is ultimately heartless is an ideology that enslaves people in a system that rewards sloth and discourages achievement.”

Lloyd continues to explain that he has “witnessed the devastating effect of liberalism in his own family.”  He writes, “My forty-something drug addicted cousin is a serial ‘impregnator’ with several out of wedlock children.  And yet, he enjoys a new townhouse, food stamps, free health care, and methadone all funded by working taxpayers.  In essence, the government is enabling and funding my cousin’s irresponsible life-style.”

So Jackson-by-way-of-Marcus’s argument is that black people simplistically blame white people for all the problems in their community when they should be… simplistically blaming liberals?  Awesome.  Way to break the cycle.

I know nothing about Marcus, but that weird detour about his cousin has me thinking he’s got to be playing white conservatives.  ”Yes, we are all related, and we are all deadbeat welfare queens!  I can say so ’cause I’m black!  Just give me a book deal and you can quote me whenever you want to be racist, and no one will be able to call you on it!”

Jackson’s not done, though, and proceeds to post a picture of her “teenage daughter.. on the front of the bus flirting with David, a black teenager.”  Welcome to post-racial America, Victoria Jackson’s daughter, where your mother will post a completely unflattering photo of you sitting next to a hot black guy, with your mouth hanging open, in order to prove she’s not racist!  This might help.

Apparently, though, the simple beauty of young love in first blossom is not enough to quiet Jackson’s rage:

His black father William is sitting near me sleeping.  Reporter Richie keeps bringing up the race thing, for over an hour.  Finally, I explode, “The President is a Racist!  The “police acted stupidly” comment Obama made about the Crowley-Gates affair was the most racist thing I have heard in a long time.  And shame on the President for purposefully stirring up racial conflict!  It popped out of his mouth at the end of a health care speech when he was off Teleprompter!  Oops!  His Jeremiah Wright training leaking out!”  I immediately realized I’d given the NBC guy the fodder he was after.   I was caught in a tired moment and I didn’t even have my make-up on.  Well… Obama is a racist, but I don’t want to be involved in childish tit-for-tat whining.

I just want my country to be FREE.

Now, even if you didn’t like the “police acted stupidly” thing, and thought it was knee-jerk or irresponsible or whatever, how is it racist, unless you think a black guy criticizing a white guy is inherently racist?  And even if you think Gates contributed to the situation or escalated it, and/or you think Crowley made an honest mistake, he clearly wasn’t, you know, right.

You gotta love how she’s going to prove she’s not racist by going off on an incoherent rant, immediately namechecking Gates and Wright.  I thought this thing was about taxes?

All of Jackson’s tribulations at the hands of scaaaarrry black people were worth it, though:

In Boston, after I had touched Sarah’s jacket with my finger, I had gone back to watching her talk to her fans when suddenly Sarah had turned around and our eyes met.  She did a double take and said, “Oh!  I love you!”  She hugged me and then she said, “Thanks for all you’re doing.  I want your autograph!”

For the rest of the day I was speechless with a dumb grin on my face…

Just the rest of the day?

In one of the more double-take inducing headlines Big Hollywood has published in a while, Brian Cherry asks the question most vital to a politically polarized nation facing an economic recession and two foreign wars:

Remember the Maines: Is Miley Cyrus the Next Leftist Trojan Horse Into Country Music?

This is a freakin koan if I’ve ever seen one.  How does one answer this question? “No”?  ”Yes”?  Neither reply seems to make much sense.  The best answer I can come up with is “Are your parents cousins or something?” but I always shy away from answering a question with a question.

Now, I’m so old that I can remember way back to May of 2009, when Big Hollywood editor-in-chief John Nolte was trying to rally good Christian soldiers around the banner of Ms. Montana:

Miley’s a target-rich environment for celebrity enforcers because she’s openly opposed to the spread of Gomorrah and therefore a threat who must be marginalized through ridicule at every opportunity.

What, pray tell, could Miley have possibly done in the last 11 months to have gone from conservative Christianity’s last bulwark against Hollywood excess to diabolical leftist sleeper agent?

Liberals failed miserably when they tried to take over the talk radio industry with Air America.  It reminded me a lot of the time that Pearl Jam took on Ticketmaster, which in turn reminded me a lot of a bowl of jell-o taking on a herd of wildebeests.  The left can’t compete in the Christian market.  Let’s face it, the folks who declare Robert Mapplethorpe “art” simply have no credibility in that particular market.  With that said, Country is a family friendly format they still think they have a chance of corrupting, and Miley Cyrus may be their perky little Trojan horse into that industry.

You mean a pop star might have a manufactured persona?  This is worse than I thought.  Pray for Toby Keith, my friends.  But wait, what actual evidence is there that Cyrus might be insincere in her publicly stated Christian beliefs?

A good example of her more questionable behavior is that she was involved in a scandal that included some pictures she took of herself with her camera phone.  Her actions bordered on sexting, and she was involved with this before she was old enough to bug her dad for the keys to the pickup.  The photos were pictures of her in her underwear, wetting herself down in a shower wearing only a white t-shirt, and lounging in the arms of boy in what appeared to be a sort of early teen afterglow.  Of course she apologized, but apparently didn’t learn anything from the incidents.  Soon after she, and her parents, allowed her to be photographed for Vanity Fair magazine in a manner that would suggest her core audience was a rampaging pack of pedophiles.  Once again, she apologized.

When that whole Vanity Fair thing went down, I just assumed it was an entirely media-generated controversy designed to sell copies of US Weekly and get Perez Hilton and TMZ page views whenever some perv googles “Miley Cyrus sexy” for the rest of eternity, and that no sentient human being could actually be offended by those photos.  Thanks for sorting me out Brian Cherry!

You know, if Cherry really thinks that all it takes to negate the conservative movement’s cultural influence and threaten its institutions is a teenage girl’s bare shoulder, he might want to consider betting on a different horse.

But the fact that Miley Cyrus is human female with a human female body that sometimes gets photographed isn’t his only evidence against her.  Behold:

While Miley is portrayed as type who can be found in Church on any given Sunday morning, she is even moving away from the official religion of the entire industry, and experimenting with Buddhism.  When talking about her religious beliefs, Miley put herself out of step with the core country audience when she made this statement:

“The one thing I’m really strong about regarding my religious beliefs is that you should know a little bit about everything before you define your own beliefs. I think all religions have a good practice in them. Liam and I have been reading about Buddhism lately and it’s all about hope and love. To me, faith is about having a clean slate and a clean start.”

Expressing a desire to be religiously literate apparently puts one “out of step with the core country audience.”  I went to Catholic school.  We were assigned books about Buddhism.  Buddhism is a major world religion, and if you’re a person who takes religion seriously, you should probably be educated about it.

As for the “I think all religions have a good practice in them,” well, that’s no different than what the Catholic Church teaches, at least.  And most mainline Protestant denominations generally articulate the same line that non-Christian religions are imperfect expressions of humankind’s relationship with God.  Cyrus isn’t saying anything here that most Christian ministers wouldn’t also say.

What Miley has that others don’t though, is a father who can get her through the Nashville gauntlet and into the club without paying any real dues.  While it is nearly inevitable that she will one day take advantage of a country music plan B, the problem is that she could be a corrupting, left-leaning, influence on an industry that so many liberal elites want to see taken out of the “red state” column.

It should be obvious to anyone that country music is hardly the sole purview of strict conservative values, but I won’t belabor a point that’s been well-documented elsewhere. What funniest to me is that Brian Cherry is actually worried about the political implications of Miley Cyrus.