Danny ChaiI wasn’t as bothered by the Contender. The reason why I think is just pure resignation. I don’t know, that’s just all I expect from Hollywood so it doesn’t rile me up when it happens. It’s like getting angry at a movie for not expressing Christian values. Yeah, that’s bad, but what do you expect?
I’ll tell you what does bother me, though. Roger Ebert. He’s my current favorite critic, but he occasionally does political commentary and it’s so blindingly (emphasis on blind) partisan it just angers me to no end. Like, against all evidence, after the whole election thing was settled, he made remarks that essentially said, “Al Gore won the election, but those votes will never be seen”. So now, with the whole USA Today et al counting the votes and everything, it’s revealed that under almost every scenario by which a recount might have occurred, George Bush would have won (there are other scenarios by which Al Gore might have won, but weren’t really options at the time). So even if Ebert had gotten what he wanted at the time, Bush would have won. He was wrong.
His comments after this recent counting? “It’s inconclusive, and Bush does not have a mandate to govern.” Anger. And I’ve never understood what that means, no mandate. So, he became President under the legal processes of this country, and what do these people expect him to do, since he has no “mandate”? Just do nothing? Is that even possible? What do they expect? I just don’t understand.
And Ebert is constantly harping about how the whole Clinton thing was wrong. That is, wrong to have pressed Clinton about it, since his private life is private. I’ve written about this way too much, but I still don’t get it. Why does it not bother people that this man perjured himself? How can these people (rightly) defend things like sexual harassment in the workplace so much, but then when it comes to prosecuting such things, defer to someone’s right to privacy? I mean, this whole thing came up because of the Paula Jones harassment thing. Clinton was questioned about Monica Lewinsky in that case, which is where he perjured himself. But that’s ok, since his private life is private.
I have nothing against people who don’t share the same political beliefs as myself. But utterly blind partisanship angers me.