Day: April 13, 2020

Unable To Accept Blame Of Any Kind

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A 4.11 N.Y. Times story, reported by Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman, Michael D. Shear, Mark Mazzetti and Julian E. Barnes, said that between late January and mid-March, President Trump lied, denied, side-stepped and fiddled while the pandemic spread and spread. Today he was asked about this — pure comedy.

From Andy Kroll‘s 4.15 Rolling Stone article, “‘Absolute Clusterfuck’: Inside the Denial and Dysfunction of Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force & how the White House fumbled its response to the worst pandemic in a century”:

“If you were to write a playbook for how not to prevent a public-health crisis, you would study the work of the Trump administration in the first three months of 2020.

“The Trump White House, through some combination of ignorance, arrogance and incompetence, failed to heed the warnings of its own experts. It failed to listen to the projections of one of its own economic advisers. It failed to take seriously what has become the worst pandemic since the 1918 flu and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And when the White House finally awoke to the seriousness of COVID-19, the response it mustered managed to contain all the worst traits of this presidency. Trump and his closest aides have ignored scientists, enlisted family members and TV personalities and corporate profiteers for help, and disregarded every protocol for how to communicate during a pandemic while spewing misinformation and lies.”

Give “Dune” A Chance

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Who in a besieged pandemic realm is in a mood to contemplate Denis Villeneuve and Timothee Chalamet‘s forthcoming Dune (Warner Bros., 12.18)? My first reaction was to instantly dismiss whatever the flying devices may be or represent or what-have-you. My second was “another seaside-cliff image in the wake of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and the forthcoming Ammonite?” My third was “why is Chalamet wearing a dark blue Barney’s winter overcoat circa 2005?”

Never Forget “Margin Call”

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J.C. Chandor‘s Margin Call (Lionsgate/Roadside) was one of the big highlights of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, or a decade ago. There’s no way that a film like Margin Call (a story about white financial elites grappling with a 2008-like Wall Street crisis, and costarring an accused sexual predator) would premiere at the Sundance Woke Festival of today, 95% of which focuses almost entirely on films about women’s issues, people of color, the LBGTQ community, etc.

This is why Sundance is essentially over — why it has come to the end of a long history of success and vitality (early ’90s to 2017) after succumbing to HUAC-style Khmer Rouge wokeness mixed with strong currents of punitive #MeToo consciousness. Not for being progressive, but for creating and feeding a political environment that (not absolutely but to a large extent) frowns upon the white-guy (and especially the older white guy) realm.

Margin Call is arguably Chandor’s best film ever, and it contains one of the finest Kevin Spacey performance of the 21st Century. Not to mention the performances by Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker and Paul Bettany.

HE commenter: “Worked in investment banking during the 80’s. Most of the guys at the top tier (Spacey/Bettany characters) don’t know how to ‘read’ the numbers. The film drilled it home that they are salesmen. They wine and dine bright and aggressive young men and bring them in to the business. The boardroom scene hinges on the idea that all these financial geniuses look to a rocket scientist (Quinto) for confirmation that their business plan is screwed. 2008 is summed up with the correct conclusion — nobody knows anything. One of the year’s best.”

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Bernie Bros. Want Purity More Than Biden Victory

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Senator Bernie Sanders has endorsed Doddering Joe Biden for the Democratic nominee for president — not a major thing. Who believes that the Bernie Bros. will turn the other cheek and endorse Biden now? Who believes that Michael Moore will become a staunch Biden guy? Get outta town.

Sanders: “We need you in the White House, Joe, and I will do all that I can to make that happen.” Biden: “Bernie, I uh…I want to thank you…that means a great deal…your endorsement means a great deal. I’m gonna need ya…not just to win the campaign but to govern.”

McConnell vs. LBJ

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The differences between the internals (political allegiances, character, guiding philosophy, ethics) of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and ’50s-era Senate Majority Leader (and then Vice-President and U.S. President) Lyndon B. Johnson are stark.

During his mid ’50s to mid ’60s heyday Johnson was a tough and wily politician who pushed through progressive legislation.

Since he became Majority Leader in early ’15 McConnell has done nothing of significance except (a) block Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, (b) block pretty much all legislation that doesn’t serve corporate interests and (c) serve the agenda of an Oval Office sociopath.

For most of his Congressional political career Johnson hid his liberal-moderate colors while being fairly unscrupulous in his pursuit of naked power.

McConnell, on the other hand, has shown himself to be an absolute reptile — a hollow, soulless operator without beliefs, as Jane Mayer’s 4.12 New Yorker profile (“How Mitch McConnell Became Trump’s Enabler-in-Chief“) points out in elaborate detail.

Every day McConnell coughs up hairballs of cynicism and serves the agenda of the most dangerous president in the history of this nation.

But I have to say (and it gives me no pleasure to do so) that while reading Mayer’s piece I was reminded of descriptions of Johnson in Dave Grubin‘s American Experience doc “LBJ” — descriptions offered by former aides and friends during Johnson’s Senate Majority days.

Howard Schuman, U.S. Senate Aide: “Well, one doesn’t know whether he was a liberal or a reactionary. Probably he was neither. He probably was just an extraordinarily skillful parliamentarian who was an opportunist and who sensed the wind and then went in that direction.”

Ronnie Dugger, LBJ Biographer: “…the absolutely unqualified opportunism of a successful politician of this particular mold.”

John Connally, LBJ Campaign Aide, LBJ Advisor: “He had no interests, really, except politics. That was his whole life. He was totally committed to it. He never read anything except politics. He didn’t care about any sports. He didn’t read any books. I don’t know of one book he read in all the years I’ve known him.”

Joseph Rauh, Jr., Americans for Democratic Action: “My opinion was that he was destroying the Democratic Party and not doing his job. His job was the opposition to the Eisenhower Administration and he didn’t do it. They were just playing hanky-panky with each other and there was really no Democratic opposition.”

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