Obama Delivers the Awesome
by Brian Pierce • Feb 17th, 2009 at 7:45 am • 18 comments
In a discussion of the political impact of Tracy Flick and the movie Election, the New Republic reports:
Alexander Payne, the film’s director, said that President Obama has told him on two separate occasions that it’s his favorite political movie.
I just got a thrill up my leg.
Comment by JayBandit on 17 February 2009 at 12:46 pm:
So, because something is Obama’s favorite, that automatically implies that his taste is far superior to everyone elses?
You guys all loved Bill Clinton, and look at the women he wound up with…not exactly the greatest taste in the world.
Comment by Buck B. on 17 February 2009 at 3:10 pm:
Jay, I honestly can’t tell if you’re deliberately caricaturing yourself or your increasingly inane comments are for real.
Care to enlighten us?
Comment by James Prescott on 17 February 2009 at 3:20 pm:
I am just confused as to the what the point of the post was. In a world with increased trend of isolationism in all countries (which I plan to post on shortly and its possible effect on the EU), an economic situation that our elected leaders seem incapable of comprehending much less fixing (something I have posted on and plan to post more on in the future), and other important issues, this is a post regarding President Obama’s movie preferences and what may or may not be running up Brian’s leg.
Buck, what type of comment would you anticipate regarding a post like this?
Comment by Buck B. on 17 February 2009 at 3:23 pm:
What are you, his mother?
Comment by Buck B. on 17 February 2009 at 3:25 pm:
Also, you are a pompous jackass.
This whole blog sucks, if you ask me.
Comment by James Prescott on 17 February 2009 at 3:40 pm:
Buck –
Are you Brian’s mother?
The majority of us here write for a political blog. We are all pompous jackasses. Also, no one ever asks any of us, including you, anything about the topics we write about. But it never stops us from stating our opinion anyway, as you just illustrated.
So well played.
Comment by Brandon on 17 February 2009 at 4:12 pm:
If the whole blog sucks why do you bother reading it? I mean I find 99% of what brian posts to be inane, but that doesn’t mean I don’t check in to see what others have posted.
Comment by Joshua on 17 February 2009 at 6:53 pm:
I think this is a terrible answer. Tracey Flick = Hillary Clinton. There are far better political movies – I’m disappointed in the Barackstar’s answer.
Buck and Brandon, please feel free to contribute some brilliance. I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve had a hectic last few weeks. I hope to pick it up soon.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 17 February 2009 at 7:49 pm:
I apologize to Prescott for not realizing that because serious issues exist in the world lighthearted commentary is therefore out of bounds.
This blog does suck, btw. There’s no sense on anybody’s part (including, mostly, my own) that the other contributors are worth engaging in respectful debate, so things tend to just be petty and insulting. This comment thread is an almost perfect encapsulation of this.
Comment by James Prescott on 17 February 2009 at 9:19 pm:
Brian -
As for your “no sense on anyone’s part that the other contributors are worth engaging in respectful debate,” you are wrong. I am a contributor and think there are plenty of people worth engaging. I almost daily engage in debate with Brandon, Billy Joe, Josh, and JayBandit on a variety of issues, and have engaged in civil debates with Segen, Tom and others, both in person and on the blog. Hell, less than a week ago you and I had a civil back and forth on how to frame success in Afghanistan. Yeah, sometimes it gets heated, but that is because the majority of the people who post here are pretty passionate about what they believe and when you engage someone like that you are going to have to take some crap. Its the nature of the game. Enough of us know each other well enough by now that we should be able to take a certain degree of abuse from each other without getting our feelings hurt. Honestly, this wasn’t that bad. The only real name calling was done by Buck. Granted, I called everyone pompous jackasses, myself included, but I believe we can all agree that is true to some extent.
So can we move on please? Yeah, you took some crap. Tomorrow, its going to be someone else. Eventually it will be me, probably sooner rather than later. But enough of the “you guys suck, you are so mean,” commentary.
Comment by Joshua on 17 February 2009 at 9:49 pm:
Brian, do you think Election is the best political movie ever made?
I’m surprised you haven’t compiled a best political movie list.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 18 February 2009 at 6:36 am:
Josh,
No, probably not, but it’s still pretty awesome that Obama thinks so. I’m impressed that he’s even seen it, actually.
I should also note I think a few of the contributors to this blog are consistently worth engaging, and that many of the contributors are occasionally worth engaging. I do still think there’s an unfortunate tendency to be dicks to one another – sometimes for reasons that completely escape me (e.g., what’s gotten up Brandon’s butt?) – in such a way that hampers worthwhile debate and discussion.
Comment by JayBandit on 18 February 2009 at 7:14 am:
Buck,
First off, go fuck yourself.
Second, I don’t see how my comment was inane. I was simply stating that people like Brian and Josh get giddy every time Obama wipes his ass successfully after taking a dump. The guy hasn’t done anything yet because it takes time to accomplish things…I get that. However, I feel they’re being awfully hypocritical by praising Obama for doing nothing so far, and having condemned Bush and others after they’ve actually done something.
I’m not saying Bush was awesome and that he was a resounding success; however, I think you should judge people on the same level of bias. That is clearly not happening.
My last comment was to poke fun at the fact that Brian implies that because Obama likes something that it must be great. My point was that they felt a similar love for Clinton, and if the same rule applies, then they must be fans of fat, ugly hags.
I didn’t realize that my comments needed to have a blueprint attached to explain them. I’ll try to dumb them down for you next time.
Hugs & Kisses,
Jaybandit
Comment by Brandon on 18 February 2009 at 8:12 am:
“what’s gotten up Brandon’s butt?”
The fact that you present your ideas in such a way as to make an easy target for mockery. See we probably agree on most big issues, but you consistently present concepts in such a shallow and whiny way that you make it extremely easy to caricature liberals. It pisses me off. Well that and the inane posts about how super ten movies are, but I ignore those.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 18 February 2009 at 9:49 am:
Ugh. I hate this insecurity that leads to constant worrying about making it “easy to caricature liberals.” I’m just trying to say what I think in as straightforward and honest a way as possible, and I’m neither a politician nor a speechwriter, so I have no obligation to do otherwise. In any case, if you think something I’m saying is substantively wrong, feel free to present a substantive counterargument; if you want to add nuance to something I’m saying, add it. But instead you just put on a big show of, “Hey, I’m a liberal criticizing another liberal, look at how sensible and levelheaded I am!” It contributes to nothing except your own self-image.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 18 February 2009 at 9:59 am:
Also, are you really so much of a crank that you can’t understand that some people like movies, and that some of those people like talking about them? If you’re not a big movie person, that’s cool, but again, no need to be a douche about it.
Comment by brandon on 18 February 2009 at 10:07 am:
Ever see Eddie Izard? It’s like his executive transvestite routine. There’s weirdo transvestites and executive transvestites. J Edgar Hoover. Yeah fuckin weirdo transvestite.
It’s like that.
I substantively argue against you when it’s appropriate. Generally your posts are “I love Obama” or otherwise lacking in intellectual depth. You can’t show someone a 10-point dive in a kiddie pool Brian.
The other day Prescott and I were wondering why his posts get so few comments while yours get so many and after a brief perusal it was pretty clear that you piss people off by presenting easily knocked-down and shallow arguments whereas he couches his arguments carefully in such a way that – while you may disagree – they can’t be so easily.
I could go on, but it’s really not necessary. I’m not trying to insult you on a personal level, I barely know you. I’m just saying that what you either a) are not thinking deeply and carefully about issues or b) you write hastily without forethought and make it look like a.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 18 February 2009 at 10:34 am:
I actually think the question of what posts get comments is an interesting one, but I think your conclusion is way off.
I just wrote a whole series of posts that got barely any comments – the Israeli election post, the post on the exclusionary rule, the Prop 8 post. The Afghanistan post comments were mostly just Prescott and me. Did I just become suddenly more intelligent when I wrote those posts, or was it that the other posts I wrote that did get comments were about issues like religion that are both hot-button and easily accessible to a broad audience?
Brenda’s post about abortion got a bunch of comments too – it was far from shallow, it was just about freaking *abortion*, which everybody has an opinion on. Prescott tends to post about fairly complicated economic issues, which is great, but, much like fairly complicated international relations or legal issues, there’s not as much of an audience there, particularly an audience that can intelligently respond to the argument being made. Plus his posts are really long.
Plus, this blog is dominated by libertarians and moderates. When somebody who is further to the left or further to the right posts something, there’s a large group of people who are likely to disagree with that person. I’m pretty far to the left, Prescott’s a moderate conservative – more people on this blog are likely to disagree with me more often than with Prescott. That has nothing to do with depth of argument, just with the audience for this blog.