My friend Andrew Breitbart has some fun this morning with the recent activities of Jon Favreau, Obama’s (semi) wunderkind 27-year old speechwriter. It seems young(ish) Mr. Favreau–twenty-seven used to be considered quite grown up–acted like a Neanderthal fraternity jerk with a Hillary Clinton cut-out and so far has gotten away with a mild slap on the wrist by a complaisant media. Andrew is correct in pointing out: If the photo had exposed a Republican offender, there’d already be a full-bore media scandal and cascading resignations. MSNBC would be rearranging its schedules for a wall-to-wall 24/7 bonanza.
Fer shure.
Meanwhile, and despite his juvenile speechwriter, Obama is increasingly acting like a Republican president (of the Bush sort). Undoubtedly the times have pushed him into it. A tax increase for the “rich” (no matter how defined) seems to be off the table. What next? No capital gains increase? I’d bet the rate stays where it is (or even goes down) for a considerable period. The market, headed upwards for the nonce, is probably betting the same way. Bush, Obama, Favreau, [insert your own Republican fraternity boy moron]- we’re all the same – victims of circumstance, not to mention our own private demons. But one final bet: Favreau may get soft treatment from the media, but Obama (not to mention Hillary) insiders will raise their eyebrows, as they should. Favreau just took a big career hit.
One more piece of evidence that the liberals’ sense of humor dries up completely when it comes to one of their own, immediately replaced by the core liberal trait: puritanism.
I’m not horribly worried about Favreau’s career — he can write a tell-all book about the campaign and make enough to retire to Maui if he wants to.
Ah, the pitfalls of the Facebook generation coming home to roost on the political class. Being a so-called Gen X-er, I’ll be careful not to tut-tut Favreau too much (is he related to the other Jon Favreau from “Swingers”?). I’m certainly glad every stupid move I ever made in my teens and twenties isn’t splashed all over the internet, that’s for sure.
This kind of thing used to only haunt those in the public eye, as Pete Townshend of The Who lamented in the liner notes to a box set
some years back:
“Being dragged through your life like this is strange. For those of you without recordings, videos and filmed interviews of yourself looking like a complete d*@#head smartarse twenty-one years old, you can still know something of the feeling. Just get out the snapshot album. Go through an old drawer. Sort out your wardrobe. Count your shoes. Look at the sell-by dates on the ketchup, Branston and HP sauce in the fridge. Everything floods back. Past lives. Past love affairs. Past serious vomits.”
I have conflicting opinions/emotions on this.
First, I think this is, possibly, the most inane contretemps in the world. I really wish that some measure of proportion could be brought to adult civilization so that things like youthful jests could be taken for what they’re worth and not the end of the world; and dealt with accordingly. Gee, a political operative made a crude gesture about an opposing pol., big whoop.
Second, I can’t help but revel in the sight of these despicable PC puritans, who have been professionally offended almost constantly, being hoist on their own petard. This is the kind of “first to take offense wins” bull that they have been saddling the rest of us with for 20 years. They should all be taken out, spanked and sent to their room without dinner for pretending to be adults.
Why would Obama insiders have a problem with it? The “bros before hos” crowd weren’t bothered by “lipstick on a pig” or “an old fish is going to stink”, and they enjoyed this last little episode too.
Crude, lewd, and rude are moral failings in my book, but the crowd that associates with Hollywood has already acceeded to this behavior, has it not? Or was Bill’s pass revoked?