Ladd Ehlinger Jr., who shot a variety of fun viral videos for conservative and Tea Party-affiliated candidates in the 2010 election, takes one for the team and watches MSNBC so you don’t have to. Ehlinger comes across this unintentionally hilarious ad, starring Rachel Maddow in a blue polypropylene hardhat, directed by legendary hydro-construction engineer Spike Lee, from last month:
Ehlinger responds, “The Hoover Dam? Are you f’@king kidding me?”
ARE YOU F’@KING KIDDING ME?
We have been told by collectivists for decades that these big dams are bad for the environment! Awful for salmon! Destructive and evil!
WTF?
Seriously, Maddow. Do you want us to build things like the Chinese Three Gorges Dam? Displace millions of people, destroy thriving ecosystems, wipe out sacred and ancient Buddhist temples, kill countless river-living bottlenose dolphins and other species? Don’t you care about Mother Earth?
WTF are you SMOKING?
Is it simply that FDR built the Hoover Dam during the heyday of U.S. collectivism when Mankind existed to serve the State, and everyone was dependent upon the Government for their subsistence meals whilst risking life and limb to build a monstrosity? Is that as far as you thought this ad through?
For the last few months you’ve been doing fairly good reportage on the B.P. oil spill and its effects on the Gulf Coast and my hometown of New Orleans – in-between your snark and hatred of liberty, of course. Are you now saying that such destruction is okay as long as it’s being done on purpose by Der Stat as opposed to malfeasance by a private corporation?
Or is it that General Electric, parent company to your ramshackle channel, wants to build some dams? Maybe they’re softening up public opinion for their big push to suck more money out of the teats of Der Stat? Have you sold out to the corporate socialists, which G.E. most certainly is? Have you sold out to G.E., Maddow?
Maddow’s last sentence in the ad is this howler:
This is a project of national significance. We’ve got those projects on the menu right now. And we’ve got to figure out whether or not we are still a country that can think this big.
And the answer from the Obama administration, as Joel Kotkin noted at the Politico last fall is…No We Can’t!
When FDR commissioned projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, he literally brought light to darkened regions. The loyalty created by FDR and Truman built a base of support for liberalism that lasted for nearly a half-century.
Today’s liberals don’t show enthusiasm for airports or dams — or anything that may kick up some dirt. Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Deanna Archuleta, for example, promised a Las Vegas audience: “You will never see another federal dam.”
Last year, Jonah Goldberg noted the environmentalist Catch-22 that has boxed-in the left. “Liberalism has become a cargo cult to the New Deal, but many of the achievements of the New Deal would be impossible now. Just try to get a Hoover Dam built today.”
Hey, I’m happy to see Rachel and GE give it the ol’ college try — but when the White House calls MSNBC, the person on the other end of the line isn’t going to be very happy with them.
Update: I wonder what the Dam Busters at American Express think of MSNBC’s ad?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlaYJhLylzw&feature=player_embedded
Update: Much more dambusting spotted here.
Related: General Motors’ own special brand of corporatist propaganda — dallying with China — is explored by Seton Motley at the Tatler.
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