Remember when the GOP tried to convince us that Barack Obama was The Joker? A chilling new report shows that they may have been right...

Remember this picture?  It popped up in the summer of 2008 as a piece of political propaganda, usually with a caption along the lines of 'Socialism!' or 'Audacity!'.  Alas, it turns out that the juxposition may be more accurate than anyone would have guessed four years ago.  There is a lengthy and seemingly well-researched article over at the London-based Bureau Of Investigative Journalism that states that, along with the widespread use of unmanned drones as a weapon to unilaterally target would-be terrorist targets, the Pentagon, under Obama's orders, has apparently been targeting not just the primary targets but those who first arrived on the scene, be they first responders or mourners.  The paragraph in question -

"But research by the Bureau has found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children.  A three month investigation including eye witness reports has found evidence that at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims. More than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. The tactics have been condemned by leading legal experts."

Politicizing apolitical Americana... Will the GOP/Right Wing surrender their biggest advantage by protesting the Clint Eastwood Chrysler Super Bowl commercial?

I've written from time-to-time about how Democrats and Liberals seem so willing to cede what should be basic apolitical American values to the Right/Republican wing of America.  Pundits, even liberal ones, brand movies as Conservative because they espouse family values, morality, private charity, personal responsibility, monogamy, the right of self-defense, entrepreneurship, patriotism, etc.  Never-mind that such American values are technically apolitical and are shared and practiced by people of all political stripes, the 'Right Wing sound machine' did a bang-up job in the 1980s and 1990s basically branding much of Americana as 'conservative', and we stupid liberals went on and allowed them to do it.  The Democratic wing has long struggled with rebutting an opposition that successfully branded itself as 'explicitly American' and has defined the debate by defining the vocabulary.  So to those criticizing last night's Chrysler commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl and was narrated by Clint Eastwood (longtime Libertarian/Republican) as some kind of pro-Obama propaganda, knock yourself out.

The problem isn't that the new Ultimate Spider-Man is Black/Hispanic. The problem is that Peter Parker had to die to make it happen.

The Ultimate line, from the beginning around ten years ago, was a way for writers and creators to take the classic Marvel characters and retell their stories in a way that was unchained from the decades of continuity and was arguably more realistic and level-headed.  From The Ultimates that presented our dear Avengers as a bunch of dysfunctional nutcases to an X-Men mythology that introduced Wolverine as Magneto's assassin, the alternate universe was a chance to try something different without disregarding the narratives and continuity that had been built up since 1962.  So it comes as no surprise that the Ultimate line would offer a replacement Spider-Man, one who is in fact a mixed-race teen rather than the traditional lily-white nerd from Brooklyn.  Of course, the official announcement today has set off the various criticisms, some of it rooted in racism, some of it merely rooted in the general fanboy whining whenever something is done differently than it was before (see - Sam Raimi's organic web shooters, the casting of Michael Keaton as Batman, etc).  Overall, a racial minority, mixed-race no-less, taking over the cowl of Spider-Man in what is as much a mainstream Spider-Man comic book as the traditional 616 universe is an obvious sign of progress and should be taken as such.  My problem isn't with Miles Morales becoming the new Spider-Man.  No, my problem is that Peter Parker had to die for it to happen.

She's a politician, not a movie star. Why the box office failure of Sarah Palin's The Undefeated doesn't mean a gosh-darn thing.

However immature it may be, it can be fun to crow when your enemy fails.  Thus we've had two weeks of various liberal bloggers jumping for joy at the financial under-performance of the Sarah Palin halo-agraphy The Undefeated.  The film opened with $65,132 on ten screens for a mediocre $6,532 per-screen average.  It expanded to 14 locations this past weekend but dropped 62%, earning just $24,662 for a $1,762 per-screen average.  The film barely has $100,000 after ten days and has announced premature (?) plans to debut on Video on Demand and DVD release.  This is frankly an out-and-out tank, a genuine bomb even when compared to other political documentaries that aren't directed by Michael Moore (comparing all political documentaries to Moore's work would be like expecting Punisher: War Zone to out-gross Spider-Man 3).  Ben Stein's Intelligent Design documentary, Expelled, ended up grossing $7.7 million in 2008.  Even something as relatively low-key as The US vs. John Lennon opened with $11,523 per-screen on six screens and eventually grossed $1.1 million back in 2006.  What does this mean for the political fortunes of Sarah Palin and/or those who endorse her ideologies?  Absolutely nothing.

Curveball admits lies that led to Iraq war. Yet those who doubted back in 2002 are still marginalized as less credible than those who believed.

In this article in The Guardian, Iraqi defector Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, nicknamed 'Curveball' admits that he made it all up. By 'all', he is referring to the various stories of Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction program that was the primary reason that the Bush/Cheney administration used as justification for invading and occupying Iraq in 2002 and 2003. Over 100,000 Iraqi civilians and nearly 5,000 American soldiers are now dead. The war will end up costing American taxpayers $3 trillion when all is said and done. Whenever the GOP blabs on about the insanely high national debt, we never hear about the two wars fought on a credit card. But the Iraqi occupation is a big reason why the country is going broke, deprived of blood and treasure on a damned crusade that was founded on the falsehoods of a now-admitted liar. Which is what many of us, those you ridiculed and mocked, have known for the last nine years.

Yup, Captain America trailer to premiere at Super Bowl. Selling Captain America to the political Right and the political Left.

Not to brag and/or scream "Toldja!", but at least Paramount is making the right call. Let's be honest, the best hope of making Captain America: The First Avenger into a crossover hit is to appeal to the... um.... overly nationalist audience members. It worked pretty well for GI Joe: the Rise of Cobra, where Paramount subtly sold an international and relatively apolitical action fantasy as some kind of 'action movie for us regular Americans'. It's a balancing act, as the film needs to make major international coin in order to turn any kind of profit, and the Marvel movie universe cannot survive on Robert Downey Jr. alone. On the plus side, the film is a 1940s World War II period piece. So it won't be hard trumpeting up an overly sentimental view of American might and righteousness during a period where, give or take an atom bomb or two, we actually were in the absolute moral right. Paramount will have to juggle marketing this 1940s American fable to both those on the Right (many of whom seem to forget or don't realize that the Nazis were defeated by a bunch of quasi-socialist liberals) and the Left (many of whom have been so turned off by the decades of Might = Right politics that even the suggestion of America's absolute moral authority in the realm of armed combat brings to mind Fox News banners). Of all the marketing campaigns being waged this summer, this will be the most interesting one to watch, if only for the theoretical political implications. And of course, all of this chat once again makes one wonder: why is Paramount not opening this thing over July 4th weekend?!?!

Scott Mendelson