Like Michael Steele, I like the word kerfuffle. Unlike Michael Steele, I know how to pronounce it:

Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a pedant.

I wasn’t surprised to hear that Richard Dawson had died.

I have been surprised up until now that he had managed to live longer than almost everyone else in the cast of Hogan’s Heroes.

To quote a bad movie, “There can be only one!” And that one is Robert Clary.

At 5’1″, Clary shows that it really is best to be short. And French. And look absolutely fabulous in a beret.

I used to have a friend—a smart and funny guy. He is kind of an archetype to me, however. Because of his emotional unavailability, people really wanted to be around him. It was often commented that wherever he was around, you could tell he was calculated whether he might be having a better time somewhere else.

We often had arguments about art. He hated anything that had the faintest whiff of sentimentality. During one conversation he told me that he hated Pete Townshend’s third solo album, All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. It took me years to figure out what he didn’t like. It was songs like this:

And The Sea Refused No River.

The truth is that over the years, I’ve become very much like my friend. I think it is all about fear—the fear that people might see into your soul and know what you do: you’re a wreck. Over time, it becomes easier to live with yourself as you are, because you just don’t have the energy to hide. But as an artist, the temptation to hide yourself in clever craft and intellectual flourishes is strong.

This is why All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes is so important. It reminds me that I not only can be utterly naked but that in order to do great work, I must be. Of course, that doesn’t mean I am able even to succeed with the first part of this equation.

I’d like to believe that.

Liberals can be silly; I’ve written about this recently. But conservatives are really the kings of talking out their asses. I’ve been amazed by the recent attacks on funding for solar panels (Solyndra) and electric cars. The argument seems to be that the government should only invest in sure things—like it is a very conservative venture capitalist. A big argument on Fox News has been that electric cars are not ready for prime time, so the government shouldn’t be investing in them. These kinds of arguments show a shocking ignorance of how the government has traditionally invested in science and technology.

Media Matters has an excellent article about this newest line of conservative talking asses. The arguments being used to attack electric cars are the same as the arguments that were used 15 years ago against hybrid cars:

I’ve thought about this a lot. In fact, it seems I am forever writing about conservative amnesia: they seem to be totally unaware of the opinions they held 20 years earlier. When reminded of past conservative opinions, it is always the same: yeah, those conservatives were wrong but this time—This time!—the liberals have gone too far and the conservatives are right. Sure, it was wrong to stop African Americans from voting before, but these new voter ID laws really need to be done! Sure, it was wrong to oppose the Clean Air Act before, but this global warming stuff in nonsense! Sure, it was wrong not to give the elderly health insurance before, but, oh, wait…

As Corey Robin argues, ’twas ever so. Conservatives always think that things are just perfect the way they are, and fight against any improvement. I know that liberals have loads of blind spots in their view of the world. I know that, as a radical, I do. What distinguishes liberal minded people from conservatives is that the liberals don’t know what their blind spots are; they at least are trying to make the world more perfect as far as they can see. It must be strange to be a conservative, knowing that not only will history prove you wrong, but you yourself may look back and wonder, “Why was I so foolish?”

Thursday, the Romney campaign sent a bunch of protesters to heckle David Axelrod’s event in Boston. When asked about this, Romney said, “Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

What’s interesting about this is that most commentators (especially on MSNBC) are focusing on the goose line rather than what it means. Romney was saying, “Sure, I sent a bunch of people out to heckle, because Obama’s people do it to me.” As far as I know, the Obama campaign has never bused people to a Romney campaign to hackle him. Instead, Romney opponents may spontaneously disrupt his events. They may or may not be Obama supporters, but I know of no evidence that the Obama campaign has anything to do with these people.

So the Romney campaign is saying that because it doesn’t like spontaneous hecklers, it—The Romney campaign!—is going to heckle the Obama campaign. This should be big news. But it isn’t.

Instead, the “liberal” media are sniggering about the line “Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” How out of touch Romney is! We all know it is supposed to be “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”! Except, you know, they’re wrong.

The original quote is from Aesop, who had a thing about aphorisms involving fowl—The Goose With the Golden Eggs and so on. It is only recently that the line has been changed. And even still, written it is more common than the new version. So with all due respect to my “liberal” friends: you’re embarrassing yourselves!

Atrios writes:

Right:

“Oh no, my dear; I’m a very good man; I’m just a very bad wizard.” Unfortunately, it is the opposite for the elites of this country. Bernanke is a very good economist; he’s just a very bad man.

Last week I introduced my father to the feature film version of The Bourne Identity. He really liked it, so I showed him The Bourne Supremacy and finally tonight The Bourne Ultimatum. As cheesy Hollywood superhero action films, they are fine. In fact, The Bourne Supremacy is actually kind of good. I particularly like the ending of it when Bourne confronts the Neski daughter (played by the fine young Russian actress Oksana Akinshina). Typically, just about every scene from the film is on YouTube, except this one.

The Bourne Ultimatum kind of sucks. In the first two films, Jason Bourne was already pretty hard to accept as a character outside of a bat suit, but I could suspend my disbelief for the greater good of mindless movie fun. But the action is totally comic book in this last one. What’s more, the plot was not well scripted. Many things are not explained. Nicky just disappears halfway through the film without anything like a resolution. And perhaps most of all, it seems that the CIA is the most corrupt organization in the history of the world. (Which may be true, but it gets tiring in these films.)

Thematically, The Bourne Ultimatum was interesting when you look at the history of the first film. The Bourne Identity was finished in the middle of 2001. Then 911 happened and the producers freaked out. Don’t believe what you hear about Hollywood being liberal and all that. Sure, they’re social liberals. But when it comes to war, you can count on the Hollywood elites to be among the biggest cheerleaders. The concern with The Bourne Identity was that now, in this “new” terrorist world, what America might need above all else is a good assassin like Jason Bourne.

So they shot another ending where Abbott meets with Bourne right before he is reunited with Marie. Abbott gives him the recruiting speech, just so we Americans can know if need be, Jason Bourne will be around to murder our problems. But they tried out the film and they found—Quelle surprise!—that no one left the film thinking, “But we need Jason Bourne out killing everybody!” Instead, everyone thought that assassination was bad and that it was real nice that Jason Bourne was able to put that behind him and reunite with his love.

Jump ahead 5 years. People have noticed that we don’t actually live in a “new” terrorist world. All the new governmental powers designed to keep us safe have—Quelle surprise!—mostly been used against us. And so The Bourne Ultimatum makes the bold thematic statement that the surveillance state is bad. Of course, back in 1998, Enemy of the State made this case far better in no less a Hollywood “blow shit up” way.[1]

As film franchises go, Bourne is about as good as you can hope for. It is certainly true that 3 was closer in quality to 1 than was the case for The Godfather. Of course, the starting place wasn’t as high.

[1] Interestingly, Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter of all the Bourne films (and writer-director of the very good Michael Clayton) was supposedly an uncredited written on Enemy of the State.