Something for the weekend:
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34 comments to Palin for President |
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*snort*
brilliant.
Genius.
very funny
It’s very frustrating, but I can never open these things.
I get rich media blocked.
Any other way I can link to it?
Hilarious. I love Monty Python.
Yes, Yes, and a third time yes!
A lot of seering that Sarah Palin is unfit for the position of Vice President – “anybody” can be President now (and various other sneers).
And some stuff about a British comic.
I see no argument in this film.
“You Americans have no sense of irony….”
Actually I am British, but I have never been a fan of “satire” as, too often, it is simply a word for telling lies.
As for being unfit for the position of Vice President or President because someone is a women (or a mother).
I wonder what the reaction would be if there was a similar U tube film implying that someone was unfit for these positions because they were black.
After all a blacked up comic could be used to illustrate the point.
I enjoy Monty Python (in very small doses!), although personally I prefer John Cleese to Michael Palin.
But be that as it may, this film clip is neither particularly funny nor intelligent. If truly anyone can be President, the evidence is that Obama (a cypher with zero executive or business experience, only two years in national politics, and a legislative record wholly devoid of accomplishment) is at the top of his ticket, not the undercard.
If anyone would like to read an explication of the Obama story, in a work of truly original genius, I commend you to Iowahawk’s “The Idiossey” (you might have to scroll down the page to reach it).
I agree with Paul and Laird. Satire is only funny when there is a sufficient kernel of truth in it. There isn’t much here, my love of MP aside. And I too prefer Cleese, although the Lumberjack song is a classic.
Count me with Paul, Alisa and Laird.
Another would-be comedian trying to make a joke out of something that he apparently doesn’t get.
This clip doesn’t have any new insight, or even any repackaging of someone else’s insight.
*yawn*
Bedtime?:-)
There was scope in this idea, but I agree with those above that it doesn’t work – for the opposite reasons.
There is a big contrast in the Palins. And it is a contrast in the cultures.
Michael is loved in Britain not so much for his Python past but his career since, which demonstrates a seemingly inexhaustible capacity for middle-class niceness and modesty, and gentle thought-provokingness, despite being transparently well-educated and stupendously rich. (Cf a similar popular affection for Stephen Fry who also makes no attempt to masquerade as a man of the people.)
Sarah’s selling point to the GOP base and the blue-collar Democrats (if I begin to understand all you’ve all been telling me) seems to be as a personification of redneck resentment of clever cosmopolitans.
Yeah, count me in as well. This wasn’t much chop as satire, it was more an extended sneer.
And yes, one of the main selling points of the United States is that anyone CAN become POTUS. Even people from the backwoods like Palin and, um, Lincoln.
Clever cosmopolitans, Guy? Who would they be? My experience of soi disant clever cosmopolitans is that they are a lot of pretentious bores and like Naipaul in his wonderful description of “rednecks” , I’ll take them any day when offered a choice.
What is this crap doing in a supposedly libertarian website? Of the four P/VP candidates, Mrs Palin is the most libertarian one (yes, that is not saying much, but still…); attacking her seems a bit counterproductive.
I was with Guy up to the point he said “redneck resentment of clever cosmopolitans.”
I think Michael Palin would probably have a problem with his identity being used in this way. He just doesn’t seem that sort of person.
But anybody who uses the phrase “redneck resentment” has been watching too much BBC and getting Democrat talking points (clinging to guns and religion, anyone?). Guy, those cosmopolitans are not resented but are in fact, held in contempt. Resentment suggests they have something we wish we had. Nothing could be further from the truth. These oh so sophisticated elites are prententious pontificators. Derision would be a better word. As for the sketch’s funniness, self deprecating is more our style. Bitter attack humor is a European thing that doesn’t play well here (except with those sophisticated urban elites).
Governor Palin’s selling point is that she is the real thing. Senators Obama and Biden are bags of ego wrapped in an expensive suits, overinflated with hot air, preening in the MSM mirror. They are ‘entitled’. They are laughably useless for purpose and any negative emotion you are picking up is not resentment, it is anger that those buffoons might actually get elected through the machinations of the MSM. But when I get a little angry, I just look at the profitability/market penetration trends of all MSM. They are crumbling everywhere from the NYT to our county paper. TV news is fading like a morning fog. News via the internet is a paradigm shift at least in the US. The writing is on the
wallweb.“I see no argument in this film.”
and
“attacking her seems a bit counterproductive.”
There is no ‘argument’ and it is not an ‘attack’. It is just something funny. Jesus.
It isn’t – that’s the point. Although I agree that taking almost an entire day to explain why is a bit silly in itself:-)
But you are also missing the point, it is not a piece of political argument, it is a joke. The fact you don’t find it funny (I do) is neither here nor there, that is not what I was commenting about. It is like looking for a political argument about state ownership of roads when someone tells the “why did the chicken cross the road” joke.
OK. That last bit was funny, BTW:-)
On some other post I questioned whether Samizdata’s lack of post on Palin indicated that the commitment of its commentators to being pseudo-sophisticated, urban oh-so–certain-atheists trumped their commitment to liberty. I guess this is the answer.
How many of these “clever cosmpolitans” can read Homer or Cicero in the orginal? Answer: precious close to none. Hence they have no claim whatsoever to consider themselves more educated than anyone else whatsoever. At least evangelicals are familiar with the Bible, meaning that they have at least a minimum familiarity with their cultural inheritance. The overwheming majority of liberals I’ve met – and that includes students and graduates of elite universities – were and are almost completely ignorant about western civilization.
Being an elitist prick doesn’t make you clever, it just makes you an elitist prick.
Thanks, Perry. I was getting seriously concerned about the humour quotient of the commentariat.
It’s a funny video, like the intention behind it or not, and I wanted to share it with those readers who put their sense of humour above ‘political arguments’ whatever that means these days.
Gabriel, grrrr, this is NO answer to anything! I am far too busy with other projects to even notice that the buzz around Palin – this was just something funny and it took me a few seconds to post it. It’s one of my blogs, not Opus Magnus. (hm, what could be derived from me using them Latin words in a comment, I wonder?!). Geez.
Also, Samizdata commentators do not necessarily coincide with, let alone define, what the Samizdatistas think or believe. The comments are the icing on the cake – sometimes relevant to the cake but often not.
Adriana,
This one (via Ann Althouse) made me laugh. But it is the product of a leftist meta-context and the writers project their own character and values onto the McCain character. For example, as I interpret them, they think Lieberman was rejected for his race not his policies and the final song line sounds like “money, go get the money” and ‘McCain’ sees everything in terms of his time as a POW and even their obsession with private jets slipped in. This (and other stuff by the same team) are locked in a relativist, identity politics meta-context. But the first half of it and the last sentence were quite funny to me. In fact if you watch it as the Dems projecting themselves in the ‘McCain’ character it gets even funnier.
Sigh. Sometimes I think too much.
Midwesterner, that was funny. Sorry, Perry, I guess I just don’t share your sense of humor (maybe you’ve been in London too long!).
Not funny, just the same old British condescension masking a deep pervasive realization that the UK is screwed irretrievably.
Arguing about humour is about as pointless as arguing about religion. On the other hand, while I’m with Perry and Adriana on this one, the humour quotient in commenters here (and some posters) has never been particularly high has it?
Gabriel,
id dignefie that there post of yourn with an anser, but i don reez or rites so gud. th’ worse 4 yeers of mi life was th’ 5f grade.
Perry:
The narrator’s comments at 0:10 and 0:32 seem to suggest that he was taking a side.
There’s humor and then there’s humor. And I suspect that where people picked up whatever culture they have influences what they might think to be funny.
What struck me: everybody who thought the front page video to be funny was European, other than Huan.
Everybody who didn’t was American, other than Alisa and Cats. And at least one of them lived for a few years not far from where I lived for my first two decades.
(Not counting the people who I don’t know their origin or where they live now)
If I had to go out on a limb: I’m going to guess that, if I showed, say “Blue Collar: One For the Road” to everybody in this thread, the folks who liked the Michael Palin video would miss half of the jokes and the folks who didn’t would probably constantly nudge each other and say “That’s me” “That’s so you” etc.
For whatever it’s worth.
Sunfish, I don’t understand your response. My point was simply that Guy Herbert and Democrat elitists have no right to look down on people, because by traditional western standards they are no more, and possibly rather less, educated than heartland evangelicals.
How you could mutate that into (I think this is what you’re saying) an elitist post (directed at you?) is beyond me.
The trouble with the “clever cosmopolitans” is two fold:
They think they are better than other people – and are really worse.
One leftist (I wish I could remember her name) admitted it when she said.
“The worst moment of my life was when I understood that someone who read the Reader’s Digest was more likely to have been on the correct side of most of the big debates of the last sixty years than someone who read the Nation”.
It is not that “Rednecks” resent other people being wiser than them – it is that they know the people who present themselves as so all knowing, are in fact morons with a big vocabulary.
The sort who were teacher’s pet at school – teacher’s pet because they absorbed and came out with every bit of shit teacher fed them.
Hence their “qualifications” and worldy success.
Meanwhile the person who questioned the doctrines and “facts” (which are anything but) that teacher taught ended up (in Brian Barry’s sneering words) working in a “Midwestern gas station”.
By the way the C.C.s are not so “nice” either Guy Herbert.
The leftists may talk about how much they love “humanity” – but they could not care less about real human beings.
Whether it was the victims of the French Revolution (contrary to the myth – mostly people of very humble stations in life), or the victims of Lenin, Pol Pot or all the rest ….
All these victims were “sacrificies” to be denied publically (as the C.C.s have never valued honesty) and accepted privately – as the price for the new society.
The left have not changed – their desire to destroy any radio or television station that does not agree with them, and to ban such thing as home schooling, shows they have not changed.
In the end they kill each other (the Revolution eats its children) so perhaps they are not so clever.
“But Paul the thread should be about humour”.
I do not have a well developed sense of humour.
I accept this is a character flaw.
That came from being a little irritated at the notion that one must read dead languages in order to consider oneself educated, and must practice whatever religion in order to consider oneself civilized.
You apparently don’t think atheists are as smart or as learned as you are. Okay, we get the idea. Nobody will think less of you if you give it a rest, already.
Sunfish, my familiarity with the classics comes entirely courtesy of Penguin. I have what was once called a basic education and is in our more degenerate age referred to as “tertiary”, that is I can read and write and I went to University. Educationally speaking, I differ very little from Obama.
One doesn’t need to be educated to know what edcuation is, any more than one needs to be rich to oppose a progressive income tax or an Anglican to value the Church of England.
Gabriel – please switch to the “Everyman” translations.
Not only are the better translations – they tend to have better introductions and so as well.
As for the dead languages.
In my youth (when my mind was still strong) I came upon some books.
The blue ones had English and Latin on facing pages.
The green ones had English and Ancient Greek on facing pages.
To my lasting shame I just read the English.
I could have at least tried to teach myself Latin (as I said my mind was stong then – very different from now), but I was too lazy.
One of the many things I regret.