The Manchurian Candidate

I live in a nether-world between movies and real life. As a technician who has worked on-set, there is not a lot of magic left. I sit home, see the finished product, and end up grading people and things on accuracy.

Movies are an allegory of our lives. My American Heritage Dictionary defines “allegory” as “A literary, dramatic, or pictorial device in which "each character, object, and event represent symbols illustrating an idea or moral or religious principle.”

‘Fess up. Whether it was Charlton Heston in “Ben-Hur”, or John Wayne in “The Searchers”, or the movie of your choice, there must have been a moment when you choked.

In the early 1960s, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, and Frank Sinatra led the cast in a cinematic version of Richard Condon’s novel “The Manchurian Candidate”. The Korean War was in the rearview mirror, and the “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy hearings before HUAC (House on Un-American activities Committee) were not all that far in the past. The notion that POWs could be “brainwashed”, and subliminal suggestions implanted in them, didn’t seem as outlandish as it might today.

In fact, the idea isn’t all that far-fetched to begin with. Look at some of the left-wing blogs, where constant repetition of the “blame Bush” mantra has produced a mind-set that will go on for years after George W. has left office. I got into trouble for excoriating a liberal friend whose sister was indoctrinating her young child with San Francisco “hate Bush” values. Hitler’s “media consultant” Joseph Goebbels had it nailed; so did George Orwell. They knew “brainwashing” as “The Big Lie”: say something often enough, and with enough conviction, and it becomes the truth, regardless of facts.

(I oweTed Kennedy for one of his drunken stupors; the fat murderer didn’t know Obama’s name before he endorsed him for president.) We speak here, of course, of Brarak Obama, a.k.a. "Osama Bamalama".

Obama is the Manchurian Candidate, if movies can step into real life. We know nothing of the substance of his character; only that he is elegant, well-spoken, and distances himself from race-baiting predecessors like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton. Like Jimmy Carter with “Fritz and Grits in ‘76”, Obama promises change from an outsider. Jimmy Carter was one of the worst presidents of the 20th century. Obama promises to equal that record of insufficiency in the 21st century, and the millennium is still young. He stands for something, but he isn’t telling us what. He has an agenda, but we don’t know what it is.

In trying to rid himself of “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright’s anti-American rants like the ghost of Dicken’s Christmas past, Osama Bamalama will have to convince us that he never went to church for 20 years. That’s a deal-breaker, no matter how you play it.

I blew up at an interlocutor who played the race card during a conversation. Paraphrasing, I don’t care if Osama Bamalama is green and purple. I’ve said for years that America is past due for a black president; Osama Bamalama just ain’t the man.

Americans traditionally prefer a president who attends church. As an overwhelmingly Christian nation, we prefer a Christian president. Occasionally, the president’s attendance at church is highlighted in the media; even when it isn’t, he is still there shaking hands with the pastor every Sunday.

Osama Bamalama has a history with race-baiting, America-hating pastor Jeremiah Wright. He has a history as long as my ex-wives. With his multi-million dollar mansion facing a golf course, and his Mercedes automobiles, Wright reminds me of the old “Reverend Ike”; another black hustler from the 1970s who promised “pie in the sky”, or here on earth, or something. Reverend Ike was the butt of many jokes in many good ol’ boy garages; he was harmless to those of us in the change-the-oil-filter pit, and if the Negroes who believed his song and dance continued to play him like the numbers racket in Atlanta, good for them.

The Manchurian Candidate has a real shot at the office. He will bring his hidden political agenda of weakness in foreign policy and appeasement on the home front to fruition.

I am not the best Christian in the world; I rely upon others to tell me where I’m going wrong. I won’t be waiting for The Manchurian Candidate on some water tower, with a .308 sniper’s rifle. We don’t do things that way, no matter how appealing the prospect. The vote will be taken, and if the Manchurian Candidate fools enough people, he’ll get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The weak-kneed French have a political philosophy of electing the worst possible leaders, on the assumption that the republic will remain strong enough to survive faulty leadership. Given no choice, I’ll go for that.

Nancy Pelosi and her gang of do-nothings in Congress have been biding their time, waiting for a president like Osama Bamalama. They may very well get what they wish for, like the old Chinese curse.

People will die, and the Manchurian Candidate will be sitting and laughing like Nero at the burning of Rome.

Like my dogs, y’all will do what pleases you. I don’t endorse McCain; vote for the gangster of your choice. That vote is all-important. Exercise it!

I should add a note here that we need to win back the Congress from Pelosi and her do-nothings. It is an often-repeated mantra. Politics in America will devolve onto your single vote. Congress is where the laws are made, and that’s where your vote counts. This is a republic of law, so don’t underestimate the significance of your vote, and jump in.