Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Janet Albrechtsen, Obama the Saint, Emotion, Analysis and everything right with the World

You can rely on Janet Albrechtsen to pour cold water on anything liberal. Indeedy, you can rely on her to douse liberalism  and its appendages in freezing water saturated in icebergs broken off in the last great global warming event (may as well put them to a good use).

In much the same way that Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm couldn't get it up with a woman - even though he had a tenth anniversary gift from his wife allowing him to commit adultery with whomever - because he saw a photo of George Bush in her back stage dressing room, Janet Albrechtsen goes frigid at the very sound of a liberal.

Odd then that she's currently in Canada - home of the soft shelled liberal - and claims this odd residency as a 'vantage point' to follow the conservative talking point that Obama and his press gallery (you know the liberal media elite made up of the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Janet Albrechtsen) will have to check out their god carefully, and make sure he does a good job, not because he's black, good looking and speaks well (in contrast to the offensive way they judged George Bush because he was white, resembled a pugnacious pug and spoke like an incoherent chimp on valium).

Yep, all the tiresome repetitions are there in Seduced by the Saint, in the American owned The Australian, wherein Albrechtsen says it would be mean spirited to complain about the media rejoicing in the sight of a good looking, left wing articulate man of color getting inaugurated.

And then in typical fashion goes on to be mean spirited. You see all the hype, all the excitement is actually only being felt by the media - when some Canadian hack writes about a bond between Obama and the American people, he obscures the fact that the bond is really between the media and Obama. People like Phillip Adams (though how that antique-collecting antique fossil is allowed to represent the liberal media must remain a mystery).

This is the same vicious, uncaring media that did down poor President Bush and his valiant team. "During the George W. Bush years, cynicism accompanied much of the media's reporting of his presidency. During Obama's term, the cynicism appears almost certain to give way to a predictable pattern of fawning support. Those in the media who were devoted to dishing out criticism of Bush on so many scores for just being Bush will award Obama a free ride from criticism for just being Obama. The not-so-secret deal is that he's handsome, he's articulate, he's left wing and he's black".

Deary me, I feel a song coming on:

I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean
Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box
Religion is the smile on a dog
I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know
what I mean, d-doo yeah

Choke me in the shallow waters
Before I get too deep

After that short break sponsored by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, let's take a look at all the issues which Albrechtsen thinks poses a problem for this superficially handsome, superficially black man. Well for a start there's climate change. But wait how's that a problem?It doesn't exist. Do nothing and all will be well, and this slick, carpet-bagging black will look good and take all the credit due to George Bush's profoundly wise inertia.

Okay, think the global financial mess. Well, we all know that's just a beat up by the liberal media, and the fault of poor people wanting to buy homes they couldn't afford. A short spell sleeping under the stars or in trailer parks will sort them out. Otherwise George W and his magnificent team, undeterred by the kind of old fashioned lefty economics supported by Keynes and Stalin, left the American and world economy in fantastic shape (except those bits ruined by the Clintons, the Democrats and the liberal media).

Enough already, think Iraq. But only yesterday in the esteemed pages of The Australian, it was announced that Iraq was a triumphal victory for George W and his masterful team. Mission accomplished, Iraq's now a fully functioning democracy, and all that handsome black man (think Will Smith with a blackberry) has to do is tell his team to skulk away into the night, leaving the Iraqis to their own devices, and all will be well.

What about the middle east then? Well in his last few years Bush and his devoted team devoted all their skill and attention to achieving peace in the middle east, as a legacy project. The assault on Lebanon, and the recent attack on Gaza have produced immense benefits for Israel and for peace. All that glibly articulate black man has to do is turn up for the clod turning ceremony when the tree of peace will be planted for all eternity.

You can see why Albrechtsen is bitter. Here's her hero done all the hard yards, and the fawning liberal elite will hand all the credit to Obama, when in truth he's got bugger all to do. Instead he hops on a train and pretends he's Lincoln. Doesn't anyone remember Lincoln was a Republican?

Janet knows, you see. She knows progressive politics "is essentially an emotional, rather than a rational, pursuit. Its foundations rest on altruistic, even utopian, belies about the perfectibility of man and society. For progressives, hope triumphs over experience".

Thank god Janet's not like that. She prefers to dwell in cess pits and dung hills, because that's where the truth lies. Humans are imperfect, corrupt experience triumphs over hope. Forget William Blake and his synthesis of innocence and experience. We're all living in a world where stuff happens (actually Donald, I think you meant to say shit happens, which is okay, you seemed to suggest, if you're the one doing the shit). Haliburton rules, you suckers.

I'm guessing Albrechtsen's favourite ad is the one where the truckie collects some beer from an idealistic, white-dressed angelic hippie commune. He uses a fluttering dove to flick the top off a bottle of fine brewed ale, before taking a swig and driving off, splattering mud on the utopian creatures as he goes. Does Albrechtsen have a secret fantasy life as a fat, stomping, blue singlet, working class hero given unique powers to see the mud splattered truth? Does she imagine she's Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour? With the mud thrown by the wretched liberal media?

Whatever. Whenever you read this kind of emotional, hysterical nonsense, you wonder how someone like Albrechtsen can reach so deep in to her bag of tricks, and talk of sober analysts, and voice concern about the role of emotion in politics and its implications for critical scrutiny. Janet, fact is, bitching on (and on and on, week after week) from a single, fixed, monomaniacal, compulsive obsessive point of view ain't sober analysis.

I'm guessing that when someone gets to condescending name calling - delivering a back handed chop to Obama's cheek for his "toastmaster skills" - she's reached the last level of abuse usually reserved for the scoundrel. Remind me never to buy The Australian, when a quick click through read will give them diddly squat revenue.

And pray this is the last right wing loony tune we have to sing about how hard done by was good ol' George W by the librul media elite, and how they fawn on Obama when the people deep down are to the right of Genghis Khan. 

Spare me o lord, or I'll have to watch Bill Maher's Religulous all over again, ten times, for my sins, meditating in my usual way on the Mystery that is right wing commentary, frantic, flawed, and deeply, hysterically emotional.


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