Dakota Fanning Film Bombs At Sundance

Good news from Robert Redford’s Sundance film festivale, Hounddog the movie featuring the rape of character played by twelve year old Dakota Fanning, pictured, is not selling.

(FOXNews)”Hounddog,” the simply awful movie in which 12-year-old Dakota Fanning‘s character is raped, has no buyers.

“No one wants it after the terrible reviews,” one distributor told me, just as we were sitting down to see another disaster, J.P. Schaefer‘s “Chapter 27.”

Did all the Kennedy’s skip the this years film festival?

Mrs. Clinton is trying to manage a dilemma.   She is both trying to portray  herself as the second coming of Lady Thatcher all the while riding her husband’s coat tails to the White House.

Michael Medved, on Townhall, examines Mrs. Clinton’s dilemma:

Anthropologist Margaret Mead, a popular professor during my years at Yale in the late 1960’s, frequently challenged students with her famous formulation that “the biggest problem for any society is to try to decide what on earth to do with its men.”

(…)

Along the same lines, the biggest problem for the current Hillary-for-President juggernaut is trying to decide what on earth to do with Bill.

Mrs. Clinton’s basic problem is that she is a phony(*), and American voters don’t vote for phonies.   Maybe Mrs. Clinton needs to find just the right shade of Power Pink? 

(Alternate titiles:  Kill Bill (Part IIIl  What to do about Bill )

 *  Yeah its a SNL video but it rings true.

DALLAS â€” AP- Authorities at Tarleton State University said they plan to investigate a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel.

“I feel like there is no excuse for this type of ignorance,” said Donald Ray Elder, president of the Stephenville school’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Photographs posted on social networking Web site Facebook.com showed partygoers wearing Afro wigs and fake gold and silver teeth. One photo showed students “mocking how African-Americans do step shows,” Elder said. In another picture, a student is dressed as Aunt Jemima and carries a gun. “That upsets me,” Elder said. “That’s someone who knows nothing about Dr. King, because Dr. King was totally about nonviolence.”

(sigh)

Granted that Doctor King was that, as I have said here previously. But this had nothing to do with Doctor King per se’, but rather, many of those who invoke his name.

Look, let’s be honest…. this was being offered to generate laughs. One thing about comedy of any sort; For it to work there has to be some measure of truth wrapped up in it to work. In fact it’s one of the ways we learn… we learn by laughing at ourselves.  Elder’s ticked off because this DOES in fact work.

Think about this; What are the students in question imitating? They’re simply imitating what they see in public… in the wake of any NBA team, for example. Or simply, on the street of any large city.

I’m sympathetic to Elder’s plight, to the extent that there’s a serious image problem going on that the students are not helping. Then again, that’s not their job. I agree, it’s a bear trying to convince mainstream America that blacks are not prone to look and act as depected by the students, when you see the “bling” chasing morons on every city street corner, and in every rap vid ever made, (As a quick example, this pic of “50 Cent”…) and in every NBA locker room, and so on, acting just as the students have depected them. He’s got a serious image problem, which is nearly impossible to overcome.

However, I submit that at the root of the image problem is that the image exists in real life, not that it’s being imitated. And that’s not going to change by calling out the PC troops to attack a bunch of white suburban school kids. The only way that such nonsense will change, is taking the route Bill Cosby has been taking of late: Pointing out how foolish idolizing such nonsense has always been… and keep hammering on that message…. which, in a very large way, is what those students were doing, too.

Appendum:  (David L)  The Pine Blog, has more: pictures, personal experience, local perspective and a bit of commentary:

Truth be told, if you went to a few of the MLK parties thrown on MLK Boulevard or Jones Park, you would have found the same thing: fried chicken, BBQ, 40 ouncers, and gang garb.

I am just a bit too old to get in lather a bunch college kids letting off a bit of steam.    That is provided none of them were driving.

Viewers of the State of the Union address are giving the president generally good marks — according to some instant surveys — which we must point out generally favor whoever is president.

A CNN poll of 370 viewers found a total of 78 percent viewed the speech as “positive” or “very positive” — and 20 percent “somewhat” or “very negative.”

In a much less scientific survey here at FOX, we asked viewers to text message us their reactions. 84 percent rated the speech as “excellent” — four percent said “good,” and 10 percent said “poor.”

That’s Britt Hume of Fox, tonight. Ummm. Democrats… why are you still trying to paint the Presdient as a failure?

Now, this changes nothing about what I said earlier tonight to Mr. Bush in this evening’s Ramble… because simply put, the Democrats will still be trying to stick it to the guy, no matter WHAT the American people think.. ANd if you think I’m kidding, consider what’s happened since 9/11.

* I mentioned in last night’s ramble, that it might get crazy today.  Frankly I can’t say I’ve never been more displeased to be right.  At least, not recently.  That’s why didn’t get a chance to get in to hit the editor today.  (shrug) Priorities.

* I see John Kerry decided that he’s not going to inflict himself on us, for this election cycle.  At least, not as a candidate.  You know damn well he’s not going to keep his mouth shut, however.  Don’t be surprised if one of the current crop doesn’t decide he should be the vice president.  Democrats, of late, have a tendency to eat their own when they lose.  Witness what happened to Holy Joe.

*

Israel and the United States will soon be destroyed, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a meeting with Syria’s foreign minister, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website said in a report. Iran’s official FARS news agency also reported the comments.

“Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… assured that the United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives,” the Iranian president was quoted as saying.

That’s Ynet News, as noted by Rhymes With Right who, in turn notes:

But the Dems like Harry Reid and Jim Webb insist that George Bush isn’t allowed to do anything but make nice with the mad mullahs and the Holocaust-denying/desiring leader of Iran. Will it take a nuclear holocaust on American soil to get the Blame-America-First Party to come around on the issue, or will continued rhetoric like this be sufficient?

One must assume this to be a rhetorical question.  The party of cut and run, is so heavily invested now in our losing in Iraq, they’d dare not countenance the United States ever winning in that region.  If we do win in that region, they are going to be in serious trouble going forward.  And mark this well; the Democrats will blame George Bush for nuclear attack when it happens on their watch.

* McQ notes that Pelosi broke her promise after all, slipping one by in the night… Dare I say ‘Culture of corruption’?

* Have a good trip, Billy.

* Message to President Bush, RE; the state of the union speech last night.

Mr. President;

Do you really think that kissing the backside of the democrats over made-up hot-button issues like health care and global warming is going to make them not like you less? did your father’s experience with trying to compromise with Democrats teach you nothing?

Please, sir, with all due respect; the Democrats are not going to start liking you, because you’re making the noises they want to hear.  You will do far better, both in terms of immediate situations within the government and in the world, by speaking the plain truth and letting the political chips fall where they may.  That’s a lesson your father’s predecessor learned well, and benefited from.  Too bad that recently we cannot say the same about you.

* Message to Chuck Hagel: Dry up, and SHUT up. your clueless ranting is doing damage to your country that you cannot possibly have the intelligence to understand.

* I see from one of the Raleigh TV stations that Democrat DA Mike Nifong is facing more ethics charges.  Smoking Gun has the court papers on these new charges, too. Is there anybody left on planet earth who thinks he’s going to get a conviction against these college kids?  Is there anybody left on planet earth who doesn’t understand that this is yet another example of Democrat corruption?

I see Ruth Marcus over at the WaPo, saying what I said yesterday:

If George W. Bush proposes something, it must be bad. Such is the knee-jerk state of partisan suspiciousness that when the president actually endorses a tax increase — a tax increase that would primarily hit the well-off, no less — Democrats still howl.

Such is the level of distrust that when the president finally disavows the free lunch and comes up with a program not financed with deficit spending — indeed, one that would actually bring in extra revenue as the years go on — Democrats still howl.

Listening to Democratic reaction to Bush’s new health insurance proposal, you get the sense that if Bush picked a plank right out of the Democratic platform — if he introduced Hillarycare itself — and stuck it in his State of the Union address, Democrats would churn out press releases denouncing it.

This blog and several others already have examples of such turn-arounds by the Democrats…Also the purpose of political expediency, of course.

Now, not surprisingly, Marcus’s writing the column from the angle of the “president is finally coming around “. And of course she manages to blame the president for the problem.  So clearly, while she’s starting to understand it, she still doesn’t have a full grasp of the reality of the situation.

Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc is attributing the following statement to Barack Obama’s staff:

“To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.”

Barack Hussien Obama has a Moslem first name and a Moslem middle name and claims to have never been a Moslem.  Bull!   I was born but I wasn’t born yesterday, senator.

It has been said that Hollywood knows a genre reaches the end of its line when Mel Brooks can make a parady out of it.  Witness Blazing Saddles marking the end of the Western genre, and Airplane marking the end of Airport genre.  Well Ok, Airplane was not a Brooks film.   My point stands.

I suppose that that analogous situation for a politician is that he knows he had reached the end of his line when Tucker Carlson can skewer him.

In two steps.

First, view the video.

Second, read Tucker Carlson.

Imagine that you’re John McCain. You’re running for president for the second time, and this time you’re widely considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Knowing that, you’ve got to expect that whomever is directing the television coverage of tonight’s speech is going to point the camera your way. You’re going to be on primetime TV, no doubt. With that in mind, you’re going to want to stay awake. If you’re McCain, who will be over 70 by 2008, you’ll want to make doubly sure to demonstrate your alertness and vigor. You definitely won’t want to slump in your seat, out cold, when Bush starts talking about Iraq. And yet that’s exactly what McCain did tonight, napping on camera for ten agonizing seconds. Lack of self-control? An expression of contempt? Embarrassing in any case.   

There are certain minimum requrements to be President of the United States, and one is to be able to stay awake through the State of the Union speech.

Update:   Added photo.   H/T:  Polipundit; NRO,.

Steve Huff, The True Crime Blog, is reporting a major update to the Missouri Kidnappings, “Shawn Hornbeck May Have Helped Abduct Ben Ownby”

KMOV out of St. Louis reported in the article I linked that Shawn Hornbeck was allegedly made to help Michael Devlin abduct Ben Ownby. Furthermore, a gun and duct tape were used in Ben’s abduction.

Sources close to the investigation told the TV station that Shawn was forced to grab Ben and force him to the floorboard of the white Nissan.

Steve appears to rankled NAMBLA.   Good.  Now if Bill O’Reilly can forget trying to psychoanalyze Shawn Hornbeck and get on NAMBLA’s case.

* it’s COLD up here in the Flower City, and we’re getting snow, pretty regularly now.  About 5in. on the ground in my front yard.  Predictions are replaced a few more before the end of this week.  Warmest temperature; the thirties on Friday.  Yeccch.

* The democrats are continuing to make political hay out of the Scooter Libby trial.  Interesting, how they’re not trying him on what he was originally charged with; that being leaking the name of Valerie Plame.  Make no mistake about it; what they’re doing is a political show trial.

* I’ll be watching the state of the union, of course.  Most likely I’ll not blog about it, until I read it tomorrow morning.  Or perhaps tomorrow afternoon depending on how the day works.  Tomorrow has every indication of being crazy.  I do understand that he’s planning on talking about immigrant assimilation; which is to say to “teach them to speak English.” Now if the president would only use that kind of tone of throughout, we’d be better off.

* Currently having lots of fun with my new Palm Pilot.  Got a good deal on some memory.  It turns out the MP3 player on it sounds better than my actual, stand-alone MP3 player.  Randomizes better, too.
*I notice that the sergeant at arms of the United States Senate made a visit to BitsBlog this afternoon.  About 2:00 or so, local time. Seems they’re interested in blogging reaction to the Omaba / Madrassa story, which I commented on here this morning. I’m less than convinced this is above board.

Alicia Colon, in the Sun(NY), picks on, or better yet picks apart, Terry McAuliffe’s inane analogy of Mrs. Clinton with Lady Thatcher. 

Now a Times of London article is trying to portray Mrs. Clinton as a tough, Margaret Thatcher type, which explains why our senator has been perfecting her hawkish demeanor. She knows that America is definitely ready for a woman president, but only one like Prime Minister Thatcher or the late Jeane Kirkpatrick. Unfortunately, Mrs. Clinton’s colleagues may be unconsciously sabotaging her ambition to become the American Thatcher.

I second Ms Colon’s question:

President Clinton was in the White House during that “Black Hawk Down” tragedy, and I wonder how much influence the “co-president” Mrs. Clinton had in denying our Rangers the support they needed.

The Clinton did not stand up for the country during their eight year tenure in office.  Having failed to defend the nation for eight years, what reason can Mrs. Clinton give to let believe us she ever will?

Insta-Glenn:

RUSH LIMBAUGH ON THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL FIELD: “To be honest with you, there’s nobody out there that revs me up, so why should I pretend that there is?” (Via The Corner).

UPDATE: There’s also this bit:

CALLER: What do you think about Brownback’s chances?

RUSH: (Laughs.)

Ouch.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yes, it’s an ouch for Brownback. It’s also an ouch for the GOP — if Limbaugh can’t get excited about their field, who will?

Look, gang… It’s like I have been saying since Reagan left office; Who I get behind is who will do the least damage to the Reagan Legacy, in combo with who will do the best at defeating the liberal Demorats. It’s my judgement that for the majority on the Republican side, that’s been the deciding factor every election cycle since that time.

 At the moment, this bottom lines at their being nobody in the Republican field willing to embrace Reagan’s values, thus putting the whole of the Republican party into damage control mode.

… at OTB’s Caption Contest.

My co-worker comments: “Figures, you’d get that one… it’s about a doughnut”.

Three interesting things have happened since President Bush announced plans to “surge” U.S. troops.

First, al Qaida appears to be retreating from Baghdad. A military intelligence officer has confirmed to Richard Miniter, editor of Pajamas Media, a report in the Iraqi newspaper al Sabah that Abu Ayyub al Masri, the head of al Qaida in Iraq, has ordered a withdrawal to Diyala province, north and east of Baghdad.

Mr. al Masri’s evacuation order said that remaining in Baghdad is a no-win situation for al Qaida, because the Fallujah campaign demonstrating the Americans have learned how to prevail in house to house fighting, Mr. Miniter said.

…

Second, the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr, whose Iranian-subsidized militia, the Mahdi army, is responsible for most of the assaults on Sunni civilians in Iraq, is cooling his rhetoric and lowering his profile.

…

Third, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki is putting more distance between himself and al Sadr, upon whose bloc of votes in parliament he had relied for political support.

That’s Jack Kelly over at RCP.

Just thought I’d mention it, given the State of the Union speech tonight, given the sure bet that the press will never mention it, nor would the Democrats… both of which are trying to label the surge ‘failed’.

This widespread derision of President Bush bothers me.  I’m distressed that a man like George Bush can be so reviled, while a moral degenerate like Bill Clinton can be so widely praised.  

Notice, now, that I didn’t say that I couldn’t understand why this is so, I just said that it distresses me.  The why is easy to understand.  Bush has been a target since the day he was sworn in.  Over 90% of the members of the mainstream New York and Washington press corps voted for Al Gore in the 2000 elections.  Some of these people have come to accept the reality that it was a close election .. .and that Bush won. Others, perhaps the majority, have never come to terms with Bush’s win and have been dedicated to the idea of destroying his presidency since January of 2000.  

Since day one there has been a template applied to the media coverage of Bush’s presidency.  If the story makes Bush look good, either ignore it or downplay it.  If the story makes Bush look bad, put it on the front page.

The media hasn’t been fighting this war against Bush alone.  The Democrats, of course, have been on board.  There was a momentary respite in the aftermath of 9/11.  But it took no time at all for the Democrats to renew their attacks.  I firmly believe that the Democrats made a conscious decision that it was more important that they destroy the image of George Bush than it was for them to get behind the war against Islamic terrorism.

That’s Boortz today, saying nothing I’ve not said here in this blog a few thousand times over the last 6 years. I’d suggest going and reading; he has much more to say on this point.

  In Democratland it will soon be illegal to run a conservative talk radio program, and it will soon be law that the Minutemen — the citizen border patrol keeping an eye on the Mexican border — will be classified domestic terrorists.

That’s John Gibson. Of course we both know he’s right. Welcome to America with the Democrats in charge. Like what you see?