I am trying to figure out more about Barack Obama because I think there is something strangely disconnected about the man. One theory I have... and I welcome others... is that he doesn't take religion seriously at all--not just for himself, but in general. It is only something to be exploited. Therefore he thinks the words of Jeremiah Wright are "just for show" and he is free to cherry-pick what he wants and finds useful. Simultaneously, he doesn't believe Ahmadinejad or Hamas, thinks their religious principles are baloney, just like Jeremiah Wright's, and that they are simply exploiting them. Since it's all a schuck, the Islamofascists can be reasoned with. I couldn't imagine a worse man for our times.
While America plays primary poker... Iran plays centrifuge
It's disturbing to read the latest about Iran's nuclear program in the midst of a primary campaign where the big issue issue of the week was whether to roll back the summer gas tax. You never know about the reliabity of these reports, of course, but this new one from the JPost contains this tidbit: Israel is also concerned that Teheran is developing a cruise missile that can evade interception by the Arrow, the IDF's anti-ballistic missile defense system. Iran is suspected of having smuggled Ukrainian X-55 cruise missiles and using them as models for an independent, domestic project. A cruise missile, which flies at low altitudes to dodge radar detection and interception, could be used to carry a nuclear warhead.
Many try to throw cold water on alarmist Israeli reports like this one, but I would remind us all of one thing. Nuclear weapons are mid-1940s technology. This is 2008.
The PJM Political Poker results are in and.... I'm not one to brag... [there's a whopper-ed.]... but Rob Long owes me 400 Big Ones on the Indiana (Hillary by twelve percent? Twelve toes was more like it.) and North Carolina (Obama by under ten??) Primaries. Okay, because I'm a good guy, I'll take his marker. Who do you like in West Virginia? [Will there even be a primary?-ed] Oregon? Obama by unanimous vote of all chardonnay growers.
BTW, no Pajamas Media commenters guessed right on Indiana and North Carolina -- not even close. [Why don't you give them all a t-shirt consolation prize anyway?-ed. Thinking about it.]
Rob Long and I are gambling men and welcome you to bet along with us -- and maybe win a PJM t-shirt. (I know. We're cheapskates. Write me and we'll try to get you a free t-shirt anyway)
But meanwhile, I'm trying to stay in a good mood, because I am feeling really depressed from this election. Since I admittedly favor McCain, I should be feeling good, watching the spectacle of Hillary and Obama demolishing each other, but there's something ominous in all this. With a supposedly post-racial candidate now living off race, it's hard to see we are headed for happy times. But I will go to lunch and try to forget. By the time I'm back, those usually inaccurate exit polls may be ready.
Remember that reactionary twit Morford who writes that sexist drivel for the San Francisco Chronicle -- Laura Bush, doormat? I wonder how that supposedly-liberal fuddy-duddy feels today with Laura out front and center on Myanmar? I don't see him front and center on anything himself except the preservation of old ideas that haven't altered for decades. The Chronicle itself is in bad need of a heavy dose of Lipitor.
Yes, I love to call pseudo-liberals reactionaries and none more than Frank Rich who gave me plenty of ammunition in his part-silly, part desperate column today: The All-White Elephant in the Room. Hoping, I suppose, to rescue Obama's cratering campaign, he again tries to generate some equivalence been Hagee's support for McCain and the Wright-Obama relationship. Rich gives us the crux here: Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee's calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright's. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee's church.
Parishioner?
Now there's an understatement. Let's go over this for those who have spent the last few months an Alpha Centauri. OBama chose to join Wright's church. Wright married the Obamas and baptized their children. Not only that... and here's the most important part... Obama was so in love with the Quotations of Chairman Jeremiah that he chose them for the title and theme of his book "The Audacity of Hope."
Okay, now go over with me one more time McCain's relationship with Hagee. Shame on Frank Rich. He's so full of it, it's coming out of his ears. (And he plays the race card... Quelle reactionnaire!)
White House hopeful Barack Obama sought on Saturday to wrest away rival John McCain's campaign theme, casting himself as the "Straight Talk" candidate willing to level with voters about tough choices facing the country.
Say what?
Yes, you read that correctly. The man who spent twenty years in the pew of a wretched, racist, sociopath and claimed not to know how bad the execrable minister was is now projecting himself as a "paragon of the truth." (How many different versions of that story did we hear? I've lost count.) And that's not even getting into Rezko, Ayers, etc.
I know - surely he can't be serious. It's too ridiculous. But it does make some bizarre sense if you follow the psyche of Barack Obama. Anyone who thinks he deserves to be President at the age of 46 because of a couple of years in the Senate and, in his words, "years of community organizing" has a sense of entitlement the size of, well, Brooklyn. Why not try to sell us the bridge?
"Roger L. Simon is a
gifted writer. I think the most brilliant new writer of private
detective fiction who has emerged in some years. His vision of
Los Angeles--fresh, new, kaleidoscopic--gives up perhaps the best
recent portrait we have had of the great multi-cultured city where
the future is continually being born--halfway between a love-lyric
and an earthquake. The Big Fix, like The Big Sleep, should become
something of a landmark in its field." --Ross Macdonald
"Moses Wine is back with all his wit and
wisdom exposing crime and
the movie industry to the respect it deserves and proving that Roger
Simon is better than ever.”
-- Tony Hillerman
"A terrific read! What a pleasure
to have Moses Wine walking
down these
mean streets again."
-- Sue Grafton, author of Q is for Quarry
"As irresistible as movie popcorn. Moses Wine is the slyest, most entertaining
gumshoe anywhere."
-- Martin Cruz Smith
"Where was Moses when the lights went
out? Up to his schnoz in an anthrax bath--but as might be expected from
Roger Simon, the tawdry Tinseltown toxins
pour like
vintage Wine."
-- Tom Robbins
"Mordantly funny... Simon's satiric humor thrives on absurdity; and once Moses is
in the director's chair, trying to salvage a project that will eventually (by hook and by crook) make it to Sundance,
this sendup of Hollywood greed and bad taste wins the jury prize."
-- Marilyn Stasio, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"…realistic and amusing. I read the whole thing in two sittings and enjoyed it very much. He
offers insight into the world of filmmaking that readers will find hilarious."
-- Glenn Reynolds, MSNBC.com
"The initial boos from the left—for whom Wine has been a hero since his first appearance
as the one radical detective in the 1973 The Big Fix—and tentative cheers from the right will have faded by the end of the
book, when both are laughing too hard to care. Moses hasn't changed his political stripes all that much, and the main target
of his creator's satire is one everybody enjoys ridiculing: the motion picture industry."
-- Jon L. Breen, THE WEEKLY STANDARD
"On his first day as head of security for a movie being shot in Prague, Moses
Wine (making believe he's a Variety reporter for reasons too complicated to summarize here) meets the city's Grand Rabbi, who
asks him, 'Perhaps you would like an exclusive interview with the only screenwriter in Eastern Europe who gives kabala
classes to foreigners on a riverboat cruise ship with catered kosher dinners in the style of the Vilna ghetto?' That lovely
snatch of tossed cultural salad sums up the wacky pleasures of Roger L. Simon's eighth book about Wine -- the Berkeley
radical who literally changed the face of mystery fiction in 1978's 'The Big Fix.'"
--Dick Adler, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"'Director's Cut,' with its footloose plot and its wisecracking lead, is about
as serious as a Marx Brothers movie--which means that Moses Wine gets to do his patriotic bit after all. In the darkest
days, they also serve who make us laugh."
-- Tom Nolan, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
"A particularly relevant plot, then, filled with action and suspense and
set against arresting Czech backgrounds. Recommended."
-- Library Journal
"Simon's savvy Hollywood satire raises troubling questions about our B-grade
domestic preparedness efforts."
-- Booklist
"Director's Cut is a timely thriller, loaded with absorbing insider snippets about
the film industry, humorous jabs at governmental bureaucracy and a general disregard for icons of any sort."
-- Bruce Tierney, BookPage
"Roger L. Simon is a talented writer who can always be counted on to deliver
a chilling thriller."
-- Harriet Klausner, Allreaders.com
"Like a fine wine, Moses just keeps getting better and better. It's one heck of a surreal roller coaster
ride full of the sophisticated satire and wry wit Roger L. Simon is famous for."
-- Anne Barringer, Old Book Barn Gazette
"A quarter of a century after he first appeared in the
now-classic The Big Fix, Moses Wine remains a private investigator par excellence."
-- In Other Words, Mystery
May 9, 2008
