The Debatable Land

McCain tells America: you'll like Obama and even if you don't you'll be fascnated by him...

As Time's Michael Scherer writes, McCain's decision to portray Obama as nothing more than a flashy celebrity better known for being famous than for any great achievement is, well, strange. Here's McCain strategist Steve Schmidt:

"It's beyond dispute that he has become the biggest celebrity in the world," [McCain Campaign head Steve] Schmidt said of Obama. "The question we are posing to the American people is this: Is he ready to lead? . . . Do the American people want to elect the world's biggest celebrity or do they want to elect an American hero, somebody who is a leader, somebody who has the right ideas to deal in a serious way with the problems we face? . . . And that will be the fundamental choice that Americans will make as they focus in on who to elect the 44th President of the United States 97 days from now."

Trouble is that this is exactly the argument Gray Davis used against Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we know how that turned out. Well, you may say, that was California, where they do things differently. Perhaps so. But then again, Ronald Reagan was also a celebrity before he became a politician. Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota, for god's sake. Then there's John F Kennedy whose entire Presidency was built upon the glamour of the Camelot myth. More prosaically, Fred Dalton Thompson was (briefly!) considered a credible Republican presidential candidate because he talked in a big deep voice and looked good playing mildly irascible authority figures on TV.

In other words, even if Schmidt's argument is correct it may not be enough to convince voters that the Presidential election should not be treated a political version of American Idol. There's a good reason for that: it is a political version of American Idol. And, in any case, Americans like and are fadcinated by celebrities. So, when the McCain campaign compares Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, it is essentially saying Barack Obama is the sort of figure you enjoy reading about, the sort of celebrity in fact, that you, the great lumpen mass of American punters, can't get enough of... This seems a rum strategy.

McCartney-Mills Revive Memory of Iraq-Iran War: Shame They Couldn't Both Lose

Danny Finkelstein:

Please accept that what I am about to write I do as someone who is a. A big fan of Paul McCartney and b. Entirely ignorant of divorce law.

But I just have to ask - why does Heather Mills get £24 million for being married to McCartney for four years?

I write as someone who a) Can't stand Paul McCartney or either of his wives and b) Is also entirely ignorant of divorce law. But...

Isn't £24m pretty fair compensation for having endured Sir Paul McCartney for four years. It works out at £16, 427 a day which, as a per diem, seems quite reasonable...

(Of course if you take the view that she is but a gold-digger, then McCartney can reflect that £24m to tell her where to hop-off is money well spent.)

If a Little Sparrow beats its wings, does that mean tall buildings fall?

On the other hand, some actors really are loopy to the tonsils. To wit, alas, the lovely Marion Cotillard, who is, it seems, a pretty keen conspiracy theorist:

Marion Cotillard : J'ai tendance à être plutôt souvent de l'avis de la théorie du complot.
Xavier de Moulins : Un peu parano ?
M. C. : Pas parano, non c'est pas parano parce que je pense qu'on nous ment sur énormément de choses : Coluche, le 11 septembre. On peut voir sur internet tous les films du 11 septembre sur la théorie du complot. C'est passionnant, c'est addictif, même.
X. de M. : Sur le 11 septembre par exemple, toi, qu'est-ce qui t'a le plus troublée, concrètement ?
M. C. : On te montre d'autres tours du même genre ayant pris des avions, ayant brûlé… il y a une tour, je crois que c'est en Espagne, qui a brûlé pendant 24 heures.
X. de M. : Avant de s'effondrer ?
M. C. : Elle ne s'est jamais effondrée ! Aucune de ces tours ne s'effondre. Et là, en quelques minutes, le truc s'effondre. Et puis après, on peut en parler longuement… Parce que c'était bourré d'or les tours du 11 septembre. Et puis c'était un gouffre à thunes parce qu'elles ont été terminées, il me semble, en 1973 et pour recâbler tout ça, pour le mettre à l'heure de toute la technologie et tout, c'était beaucoup plus cher de faire des travaux etc. que de les détruire…

It don't end there: she doesn't believe in the moon landings either...

Est-ce que l'homme a vraiment marché sur la lune ? J'ai vu pas mal de documentaires là-dessus et ça, vraiment je m'interroge. Et en tout cas je ne crois pas tout ce qu'on me dit, ça c'est sûr.

Via Arthur Goldhammer who also notes that this is a useful reminder of the continuing and extraordinary endurance of 9/11 conspiracies in France.

Lessons from the Tomb Raider

It's easy, of course, to mock actors and pop stars and their worthy pretensions to saving the planet. But whatever else one may say of her, I think it's true that Angelina Jolie takes her role as a UNHCR "ambassador" more seriously than most. Anyway, she has an interesting and persuasive op-ed in the Washington Post today:

My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.

Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?

What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. UNHCR has appealed for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. That is not a small amount of money -- but it is less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq. I would like to call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.

[Gratuitous hit-seeking picture to be inserted here...Ed.] OK!

PS: Here's the hilarious bio the WaPo gives Ms Jolie:

Angelina Jolie, an actor, is a UNHCR goodwill ambassador

Oh, you mean that Angelina Jolie?

.

Who needs TV writers anyway?

At last! A new TV "reality" show worth watching:                                                                                      

Move over American Idol and make room for Rockstar Curling, a reality television show that may indeed have a rock-star connection.

NBC confirmed yesterday it has an exclusive option to air a 10-episode sports reality show that will give the winners a shot at competing in the U.S. championships and even going to the 2010 Olympics.

And one aspect that would make this a draw to the button for NBC is a plan to land closet curlers Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi as part of the show, assuming the rockers aren't worried what being connected to a sport with brooms might do to their images.

According to sources, the two rock stars are among a group of entertainment types who rent arena time on occasion to pick up brooms instead of guitars.

But what's this about "closet curlers"? Curl with pride, man. With pride.

Chuck Norris doesn't endorse, he tells America how it's going to be...

Via Garance, here is by far and away the best advertisement of this interminable presidential election campaign:

UPDATE: Daniel Larison makes the good point that Huckabee's two word plan for securing the border ("Chuck Norris") is an admission that Huckabee doesn't really have a border policy at all (or at least not one likely to appeal to discontented Iowa Republicans).

Best - or at least most amusing - reaction to Huckabee's ad comes, of course, from our old friend Witless Fred Dalton Thompson whose campaign spokesman complains that "Mike Huckabee has confused celebrity endorsement with serious policy."

Correction of the Day

Definitely from the Department of Too Good to Check:

CORRECTIVE: Paris Hilton Story

                                                                 

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

(11-13) 15:44 PST    GAUHATI, India (AP) --

In a Nov. 13 story, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that Paris Hilton was praised by conservationists for highlighting the problem of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, said she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India.

[Hat-Tip: The Agitator]

           

           

Lindsay Lohan and William Jennings Bryan?

Someone arrived at this blog thanks to a search for: Angelina Jolie George Wallace.

Readers are invited to suggest other, even more improbable, Hollywood-Politics couples in the comments section.

A (Rather Good) Bit of Fry...

Stephen Fry has a blog? Ye gods, whatever next? That said, he may not have quite mastered either the brevity or the frequency elements of the gig. Still, absorbing stuff. Or something.  Certainly it ain't your average celeb-blog. What may be the world's longest post on Smartphones ever written by a Cambridge Footlight, concludes:

As the General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer has it, “I have followed too much the devices and desires of my own heart.” Amen.

Then there's a lengthy - but very warm and very wise -  rumination on fame which, well, you'll just have to read for yourself. But here's a fun story:

I’ll start with a story that illustrates exactly one aspect of that point. 15 or so years ago I was filming a TV drama called Stalag Luft in Harrogate with Nicholas Lyndhurst. After a couple of nights sampling the hotel’s room service menu we decided to totter into town and try our luck in an Indian restaurant. We were spotted by a group of young Harro … young Harrogaters? Harrovians won’t do it. Whatever, a sample of Harrogate youth button-holed us. They hailed Nicholas in a strange blend of North Yorkshire and attempted South London, punching him playfully but quite forcefully on the arm and saying ‘Come on Rodney, you fucking plonker, give us your autograph, you daft cunt.’ They roughhoused him like this as he patiently signed, and then they turned to me, all but doffing their caps, and asked in a very polite tone, ‘Excuse me, Mr Fry, but can we have your autograph too?’ Walking away from this encounter Lyndhurst said in an aggrieved tone as he rubbed his bruised upper arm: ‘What the hell was that about? I get called a cunt and violently punched and you get “excuse me Mr Fry”???’. ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘thing is, you play everyone’s favourite younger brother and so they treat you like a younger brother, while I play generals and lawyers and bishops and they treat me accordingly.’ ‘Right, that’s it,’ said Nick, ‘from now on it’s bishops and generals only.’

Also, how do you think famous people think of the rest of us?

Small sidebar. I’m afraid there are plenty of words used by slebs to describe non-slebs. Here are some I’ve heard.

Mops/moppets – silly. It stands for Members Of the Public.
Civilians – reasonable, but a bit John Goodman in The Big Lebowski.
Ordinaries – ouch.
Muggles – obvious and quite sweet I suppose.
Punters – naff.

As I say, there's lots more that merits quotation, so do pop over and have a look yourself.

Jeanne Campbell, RIP: Forget Not

John F Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev, Fidel Castro, Lord Beaverbrook, Oswald Moseley, Claus von Bulow, Norman Mailer, J Paul Getty, Randolph Churchill, Henry Luce, Gore Vidal, the Beatles and Napoleon Bonaparte...

Just some of the names appearing in this Daily Telegraph obituary of a remarkable and entertaining (yet oddly melancholy) life:

Lady Jeanne Campbell , who has died aged 78, was a journalist who reported for the Evening Standard from New York for many years; she was also the former wife of Norman Mailer, the daughter of the reprobate 11th Duke of Argyll and the favourite granddaughter of Lord Beaverbrook.

As a journalist she covered the funeral of John F Kennedy in 1963, observing memorably that Jackie Kennedy had "given the American people from this day on the one thing they always lacked — majesty".

Lady Jeanne was wild. So numerous were her love affairs that James C Humes (a speechwriter for many American presidents) claimed in his memoirs, Confessions of a White House Ghostwriter, that she was the only woman to have known "Biblically" Presidents Khrushchev, Kennedy and Castro — and all, he claimed, within the space of a year. Humes suggested that Kennedy went through his paces at her Georgetown house in October 1963; Khruschev at his dacha in April 1964; and Castro in Havana the following May.

Jeanne Louise Campbell (sometimes known as Jean or Jeanie) was the daughter of Ian Campbell, the handsome playboy who was heir to Niall, the bachelor 10th Duke of Argyll, his eccentric first cousin once removed. Her mother was Janet Aitken, daughter of the proprietor of the Daily Express.

Jeanne's parents had met at a casino in Le Touquet, when Janet was 17 and Ian 24. Janet later recalled that her husband had been "long on charm but short on judgment at the gaming tables". They married in December 1927, but the union got off to an unpropitious start when the groom — intending to instruct his bride in her marital duties — took her to watch a display of graphic lovemaking in a brothel. He was soon selling his bride's jewels to pay his gambling debts.

Read on...here

Deparment of naivete

The anti-land mines brigade are claiming victory (of a sort). The NYT's The Lede is too charitable by far:

No one gets into arms control for the glamor and the primetime awards shows, but the International Campaign to Ban Landmines just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to celebrate their 10th anniversary punctuated with a pragmatic rejoinder: “Success in progress.”

Emphasis added of course. Equally obviously, that's exactly why many people "get into arms control". Ditto tree-hugging and fretting about global warming and lord knows how many other causes.

What I loved once and what I love now are two different things.

Matthew d'Ancona makes a pretty sweeping claim this morning. Sir Michael Caine is, he writes:

almost certainly the Greatest Living Englishman.

My first reaction was that this was pretty strong mustard. But then again, now that Bill Deedes has gone, who are the other contenders? Your nominations please...

And if Sir Sean Connery can be labeled the Greatest Living Scotsman, perhaps it's appropriate that his old partner from The Man Who Would Be King be accorded the crown south of the border. In the light of recent developments in Scotland and England, readers are also invited to speculate, as wildly as possible, upon the potential political consequences and significance of this coupling. Be bold.

Judging Arthur Miller and Gunter Grass

That wise owl Terry Teachout responds to the brouhaha over the revelation that Arthur Miller "deleted" his Downs-syndrome son from his life, by digging into his vast archive to retrieve the column he wrote when Gunter Grass's youthful service in the Waffen SS came to public attention. Mr Teachout reminds us of five important principles whose application is by no means confined to artists in trouble:

1. Judging the sins of the past by the standards of the present can be a shortcut to self-righteousness. Make sure you have all the facts--and that you understand their historical context--before passing sentence.

2. Don't lose your sense of proportion.

3.Remember the Golden Rule. As Somerset Maugham said, "I do not believe that there is any man, who if the whole truth were known of him, would not seem a monster of depravity."

4. The work is what matters most...

5. ...But artists are human beings, too... The ability to make great art excuses no man his basic human responsibilities.

The whole thing is well worth reading.

In Arthur Miller's case, Teachout concludes:

I don't think Arthur Miller made beautiful art. Judging by the Vanity Fair piece that revealed to the world the heartless way in which he treated his fourth child, it would appear that his soul was no more beautiful. I wish these two things were necessarily related. That would make the world a more orderly and intelligible place. But they aren't, and--alas--it isn't.

Today's tribute to the academy...

Researchers confirm that rock'n'roll stars lead unhealthy lives and die young. Shockerooni!

Beckham begins earning his salary (on the pitch)

If you thought David Beckham would be a one day story and then quickly ignored in the US you might want to consider that notice of his first goal for the Los Angeles Galaxy was considered the most important "Breaking News" for a full hour on ESPN last night. Then again, it was a trademark piece of Beckhamite brilliance: