Randy Newman's Macworld 2008 Political Rant

Macworld 2008 is here this week, and, true to form, Steve Jobs' Tuesday keynote presentation included some pretty neat product announcements. Randy Newman’s accompanying song-form political rant, however, should in a sane world be an embarrassment to Apple. Seems like this should be getting a lot more critical attention.

I found Newman's performance pretty offensive, but watch the whole thing and judge for yourself. Apparently the song — titled “A Few Words In Defense of Our Country” with no small measure of irony — is an existing element of Randy Newman’s repertoire, which makes it seem implausible that SJ didn't know what was coming. The song is on the iTunes Store, and several videos of Newman's performance are now up on YouTube, including this one with helpful subtitles added. (You can also find Newman’s performance in the streaming Macworld Keynote video, if you fast-forward to 1 hr. 18 mins.)

On reflection, I’m not entirely sure what to make of his muddled message. The favorable comparison of our present leadership to historic figures such as Hitler and Stalin, if meant as a compliment, has surely got to be about the most backhanded compliment I’ve ever heard. With defenders like Newman, who needs enemies?

Oh, and apparently it’s PC now to publicly use terms like “tight-assed Italians” (as long as you’re referring to conservative justices on the Supreme Court)? Geez.

For good measure, he even capped it off with a little "I usually root against corporations" talk, and rehashed for us once again the familiar tired accusations of "Empire!". (I'm willing to bet he hasn't had the good fortune of reading Bill Whittle's brilliant 2002 piece on the topic.)

"The end of an empire is messy at best,
and this empire is ended like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We're adrift in the land of the brave and the home of the free
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye."

Yes, goodbye Randy. And next time, if you really want to help us out, please, just stop helping.

Update 1/17: Well put at Angry Zen Master:

There are apparently two Randy Newmans. The Randy Newman we all know writes little ditties for PIXAR flicks and television shows and from the lyrical content of those themes, you might suspect that he’s a big sweetie. Then there’s the Randy Newman who showed up at Macworld 2008’s keynote address. That Randy Newman is quite insane.

I guess that's one Randy Newman for each of John Kerry's two Americas?

He's done it yet again

It hasn't been my intent for Fearless Dream to become a "link blog" or sort of "backup RSS feed" for Eject! Eject! Eject!, and it's high on my freshly minted, unabashedly optimistic 2008 To Do list to put some serious time into writing about the ideas that I've been continuing to turn over in my mind and gather in note files and on bits of paper. But I can't resist the compulsion to point out, even if for the third time in a row, that Bill Whittle has come through yet again with another characteristically excellent, must-read, on-point essay: “Forty Second Boyd and the Big Picture”.*

Find a comfortable chair, as this one's a two-parter, but rest assured that the destination is well worth the journey. By part 2 I was, as I've certainly found myself before on many occasions with Bill's incomparable writing, on the edge of my proverbial seat, my heart aglow.

By all means, ignore the following and go directly to Bill's site to read the whole thing... But I can't resist quoting for well-deserved emphasis one of the many gems of expression contained in Bill's essay. It's vital that we think about these points until they really sink in, because we owe it to our fighting men and women and to the people of Iraq not to give up.

I think the Surge has had spectacular success not because of the additional troops so much as for the fact that when the media and the Democrats demanded we cut and run… we did not cut and run. We doubled down. When the calls for defeat and dishonor were at their loudest – sad to say a not unwarranted street rep we had made for ourselves – somehow, somehow we simply just hung on and gave them not a retreat but a charge.

Jesus Christ, but that must have gotten someone’s attention. Yes, the Surge is working. But I believe it is not a surge of boots that is doing the work so much as it is a surge of hope.

And hope… well, hope is a dangerous thing. For every day that Iraq returns not only to normal but to free normal is a day remembered. It is a day to which other, darker days may be compared.

Every day of success, every newly opened shop, every school and soccer game free of secret police and each and every night devoid of the terror of arbitrary arrest and execution is something to lose. It is something the murdering bastards of al Qaeda cannot give but can only take away. We have taken their sword from them. They wield it now only against themselves. They will do it, too: more pain and more death are coming, for that is all they know how to do. But hope walks the streets of Baghdad now, hope in the form of decent and brave young men and women who have held a line against all odds and perhaps bought with their courage and their blood the time we need for that hope to spread.

I certainly share Bill's admiration and appreciation for our deeply heroic and courageous men and women in uniform, who are daily putting their lives on the line for worthy ideals that are well worth fighting for, as well as for the superb reporting work that independent journalists such as Michael Totten and Michael Yon have done, telling both our soldiers' stories and the stories of the Iraqi people as they persevere in a shared struggle to build a stable free society and a future worth having. It has become my chief regret in life that I have not served my country in the armed forces. I heard the call when war came to New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on the calm, still morning of 9/11, and after much soul-searching came to believe (quite possibly with an unmerited sense of self-importance, and/or as a rationalization for simple lack of courage) that there was some other way I would be able to help more effectively, by putting my best effort forth in the crucial battle for hearts and minds. I have thus far done but a shamefully infinitesimal fraction of what I set out to do, of what I feel duty-bound to do, in that regard. But this is a new year, a gift of time, and with it another chance to summon my best effort, to begin to repay to whatever extent possible the profound debt I owe to those who have made my life possible, to the country and culture of liberty that I hold dear.

* Links updated 2009-10-29

A Brief Lesson on Elementary Self-Defense

Over at Eject! Eject! Eject!, Bill Whittle reflects on the state we're in, following an adroit and roundly deserved Fisking:

We can no longer afford to let this anti-American garbage pass unchallenged. As a kind and secure people, we tend to let a lot of this go under the bridge, but this kind of crap gets more and more traction, and those days I think must come to an end for a while.

[...]

America is dying from relentless and unwarranted criticism that is so out of the realm of reason and measure that it is corroding the foundations of society.

I would never, ever want an American history that excluded slavery and the fate of the Indians. But ask a college kid today about American history, and most will tell you it is nothing more than slavery and the Indians.

That has to be fought tooth and nail.

It does indeed.