Ah, another turn to the right from world-class playwright and screenwriter (and script doctor -- often uncredited, but gets paid a ton of money to turn dreck stripts into not-so-drecky scripts, like, uhh, Revenge of the Sith... hey, don't blame him, he was acting under orders from Jar-Jar Lucas).

Although we actually already kind of knew about this one. Partly because the very fact he usually avoided politics was a pretty big clue as to has actual politics. (And partly because a recent article asking why there were no right-wing plays in Britain could offer only a single name of a righty working in the British theater at all: Tom Stoppard.)

Anyway, another very high draft pick of mine for the Creative Conservative Conference. But he'd already joined the team.

I was already conscious of a feeling in myself which detached me from the prevailing spirit of rebellion when bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but to be young was to be where itÂ’s at.

The feeling I refer to was embarrassment. I was embarrassed by the slogans and postures of rebellion in a society which, in London as in Paris, had moved on since Wordsworth was young and which seemed to me to be the least worst system into which one might have been born – the open liberal democracy whose very essence was the toleration of dissent.

I had not been born into it. You donÂ’t need to be a qualified psychologist to work out that in England in 1968, 22 years after I arrived, I was much more disposed to champion my adoptive country than to find fault with it. For all I knew to the contrary, if my father had survived the war (he was killed in the Far East) he would have taken his family back to my birthplace in Czechoslovakia in 1946 and I would have grown up under the communist dictatorship which followed two years later.

I was as aware as most people were that not everything in the gardens of the West was lovely and of course we didn’t know – one never knows – the half of it. But when in August 1968 the armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia, an act which was simply the ongoing occupation of eastern Europe writ bold, my embarrassment at our agit-prop mummers’ “revolution” turned to revulsion.

What repelled me was the implied conflation of two categorically different cases. The “free West”, God knew, was all too often disfigured by corruption and injustice but the abuses represented, and were acknowledged to represent, a failure of the model. In the East, though, the abuses represented the model in full working order.

It's odd: There are only a few modern playwrights I've had any interest in whatsoever, and whose plays I read on my own, without, you know, being assigned to do so in a class. Two of them are righties and I had no idea of that at the time (and in fact I wasn't even a righty at the time). Evidence, I guess, to a strong temperamental component to conservatism. (Chris Durang is another one, but he's definitely not a righty. But then, he was brutally filthy, so mystery solved on his appeal.)

Below a clip of Stoppard directing another righty I always liked for some reason. Plus Tim Roth. Who I also always liked. Say, you don't think...? Mr. Orange? Red-stater?

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:25 AM | Comments (70)
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A thread for you NCAA tournament fans, by request from a moron commenter.

Discuss your basketball crazy here. Something to tickle the palate, the first buzzer-beater of the tourney, Western Kentucky over Drake

I got 24 out of 32 in the first round in the picks, but I forgot to pick an overall winner (because I'm an idiot), so I have like, what, 4 points?

I'll still beat DrewM.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:21 AM | Comments (26)
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Scouring the landscape for Hillary's comments on the passport record scandal.

Scandal!!

The Obama campaign can't shut up about it.

The Clinton campaign, for reasons I can't quite fathom, can't peep about it.

(those are dumb google searches, changing as we breathe. still, bless their little hearts, one campaign is raising hell, the other raising money and treading lightly). But I even checked out Hillary's campaign website this evening (they would like some money). Nada. Not a word about the passport record searches.

One wonders why the Clinton campaign would be so reluctant to dig into record breaches.

That's what one wonders. One does.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:12 PM | Comments (28)
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Too funny watching Keith wax psycotic over Geraldine Ferarro's racial "gaffe" and apologize away for Rev. Wright's.

The most glaring inconsistency: That there's no reason for Obama to throw Wright "under the bus," but that mere "distancing" from Ferarro is not good enough for Clinton. In that case, she must (stage voice, fiery anger) "reject and denounce Geraldine Ferarro."

As we all keep saying: They're not even trying to hide it anymore.

Thanks to Jen.

Posted by: Ace at 03:44 PM | Comments (30)
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Note: Some sequences have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
--Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008.

Hillary Clinton has been regaling supporters on the campaign trail with hair-raising tales of a trip she made to Bosnia in March 1996. In her retelling, she was sent to places that her husband, President Clinton, could not go because they were "too dangerous." When her account was challenged by one of her traveling companions, the comedian Sinbad, she upped the ante and injected even more drama into the story. In a speech earlier this week, she talked about "landing under sniper fire" and running for safety with "our heads down."

There are numerous problems with Clinton's version of events.

Pictured: Hillary at the Bosnian airfield where sniper fire caused her to duck and run for vehicles. We see her here coolly ducking a whizzing bullet while attempting to shield a child from hollowpointed death.

No, really, on that picture, by the way. I mean, that is in fact the greeting ceremony where this sniper fire was puncturing the landscape.

More:

As a reporter who visited Bosnia soon after the December 1995 Dayton Peace agreement, I can attest that the physical risks were minimal during this period, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. Air Force base, such as Tuzla....

Had Hillary Clinton's plane come "under sniper fire" in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including the Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the First Lady....

Far from running to an airport building with their heads down, Clinton and her party were greeted on the tarmac by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officials. An eight-year-old Moslem girl, Emina Bicakcic, read a poem in English. An Associated Press photograph of the greeting ceremony, above, shows a smiling Clinton bending down to receive a kiss.

"There is peace now," Emina told Clinton, according to Pomfret's report in the Washington Post the following day, "because Mr. Clinton signed it. All this peace. I love it."

You know what the ultimate peace is, little girl?

The sudden, welcome death that rides on an assassin's bullet.

Be grateful the fearless First Lady spared you such a peaceful oblivion, little girl.

Via Kaus, who continues to be the only liberal-leaning commentator in America who did not have an aneurysm-inducing orgasm over Obama's speech.

Posted by: Ace at 03:35 PM | Comments (31)
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We already knew Obama's cock must taste like lasagna.

So what about Wright's? Shrimp scampi, I'm thinking. General Tso's Chicken at the very least.

Bleg: We've got to get on the ball here. Slideshow of all those halo pictures of Obama to Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. With break-ins for Chris Matthews' "thrill down your leg" and "greatest speech on race since Abraham Lincoln" and similar stuff.

Forget It: It's old.

Pardon the timing on this. I know it's Good Friday. It's not blasphemous, I don't think, so much as it's mocking those who seem to actually believe Obama is really Jesus.

From Obamamessiah.com.

Oh: In case anyone missed it, I left Andrew Sullivan a smoking crater the other day. Probably my cruelest slam of him ever, partly because I just kept linking all the previous crap I'd written about him.

Another One: I got tipped this a while ago (sorry, I forget who). It's Building a Religion by Cake. Pretty decent, but I just didn't know the song so I was meh on it.

But what the hell. Nothing satisfies like excess.

Getting Old Testament on the DNC's Ass: Angry lefties plot "Plan Jericho" should Obama be denied the nomination:

Call it Plan Jericho: Like Joshua of the Old Testament and his troops who circled the halls of the city, marched around it silently for six days, on the seventh day marched around it seven times more and then, on cue, sounded a horn to end the silence and shout all at once, toppled the walls, entered the city, and “killed” (the Bible says so literally, but this time it will be politically, not mortally) every man, woman and superdelegate – including any imposter they might “nominate” by imposition – that did not participate in the certain walk-out protest that will occur under their scenario and instead chooses to remain inside the hall.

Are you quite sure Obama is Jesus?

I'm not a big believer in End-of-Days claptrap, but I'm beginning to think a better case could be made for someone else mentioned near the very end of the Bible.

Posted by: Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (45)
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On the cover of AARP Magazine.

I am officially depressed.

UPDATE: Moron commenter bRight points out she turns 50 in November, so she's only a year and a couple of months older than me.

So I ain't depressed anymore. He linked the dance scene from True Lies too, describing it as "the best combination of humor and sexuality ever made". I won't argue, although the rumble scene from Anchorman would be a close second. There was a guy on fire, and Brick killed a guy with a trident.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:55 PM | Comments (50)
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Don't sweat it-- Wright was just quoting Lawrence Eagleberger, who once said this while taking a crap in an Appleby's men's room. [QUOTE MISSING]

So everything's cool. As a commenter noted earlier: Racism, virulent anti-americanism, hatred, and support of terrorism are all fine for public utterance -- so long as you properly footnote your remarks.

Which, by the way, Wright did not.

Bonus: Okay, this is kinda funny.

Thanks to Geraghty, with a little more -- Hillary photographed sitting right next to Wright at that "I have sinned, I have ridden dirty" summit.

Not to bring up something a little dicey, but if we're excusing hatred and racism simply if there's a footnote to someone in an official capacity in government...

"Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." 1

1 -- Robert C. Byrd, senior Democratic Senator of West Virginia and former Klansman

And no, goddamnit, I do not endorse those remarks nor use them to bait. I'm illustrating the gag-worthy quality of Roland Martin's deep-throated (ahem) apologism, and what it is he's had to swallow to defend this. I'm surprised he didn't choke on it or vomit it back up.

See what I did there?

Posted by: Ace at 12:34 PM | Comments (50)
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For those of you going away soon, Happy Easter.

No one is allowed to tell me that's in bad taste, because Mom sent it. Seriously:

HAPPY EASTER #1 Son,

Love,
Mom

Why don't you use this on your blog and wish all your morons a happy Easter.

I saw you used the Taliban one, glad you liked it.

I get so many emails but most are way too dirty to send to my son!!

Well, I don't know, Mom. How dirty is "too dirty"?

Oh yeah: #1 Son. Suck on that, #2 and #3 Sons.

Truth hurts a bit, huh? Oh yeah. Truth hurts... so good.

Punks. No, seriously brothers: Happy Inferior Easter to you, too. Maybe you can find a nice waitress at Denny's to spend it with. An older woman who actually loves you, maybe. Or will pretend to while you choke down a Grand Slam Breakfast... and tears.

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (55)
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Maybe not the biggest news story of the day but still pretty cool.

Meet Veeramuthu Kalimuthu, aka “Kali”.

A man had fallen onto the tracks from the opposite platform, all the way on the other side of the station.

"People were getting their cell phones out trying to call the police, somebody's got to help him and then I looked over and I saw the gentlemen Kali jump down, hop over the rails," said witness Ed DijosephÂ…

Kali made it across three sets of tracks, and knew about the three third rails, which are electrified with 600 volts -- enough to push a 400-ton train.

Â…Just getting to the man was hard enough, but once he got to him he had to deal with the fact that the victim was a good 30-40 pounds heavier than he was. Kali is just 5-foot-5 and 150 pounds. Add to that the fact that at 5 p.m. rush hour trains come through that section of track every three minutes.

Â…With the help of someone on the platform, Kali hoisted the guy up.

"I think within a minute after he got the man up the train heading Uptown came by," Dijoseph said. "If Kali hadn't moved him I truly Â… I really believe that the train would've killed him."

See, not all New Yorkers are sex obsessed Governors.

Our hero is also modest. He didnÂ’t call the media, others did. Our man just ran back across the tracks (not the smartest idea), caught his train and went home.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:19 AM | Comments (21)
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