Thursday, February 24, 2011

Wankee Doodle Dandy

Charles P. Pierce has a parenthetical in his Super Bowl pre-game post mortem that I salute, though not in a jingoistic way:



(BTW, NFL, God Bless America and the Anthem? And the fly-by? Could you militarize this event just a tad more? And what in the name of the FSM was the point of giving us both Sam Elliott and Michael Douglas for the pregame Heroic Voiceover Brigade? And, Michael Douglas, how exactly do we link JFK's inaugural, MLK's Dream speech, the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, Ali's KO of Liston in Lewiston, and this football game? A journey? More like a trip, actually. The pregame show was what Leni Riefenstahl would have done had she emigrated here as a child and gone to work for Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price.)



How true, how apt. I had the pre-game on mute and every time I glanced up I wondered if we had declared war on Iraq or a hologram of Ronald Reagan was going to materialize on stage, raising a ruddy hand in blessing as Peggy Noonan ascended into heaven. The Super Bowl is bombastic enough without being a fanfare for World War III or IV, but who's counting? Or is it that the country requires this much self-affirmation now to reassure itself that it's still proud and virile? Maybe Stanley Fish can figure this out for us.

I gather Christina Aguilera word-salad'd the lyrics of the Star-Spangled Banner, upsetting the delicate sensibilities of all patriots, especially the only true patriots, conservative bloggers.

I feel that in the future only American singers should be asked to screech the Anthem at the Super Bowl, for only they, as Americans, have earned the birthright and privilege to screw up those lyrics, as Francis Scott Key and Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar intended.

P.S.: It's impossible to imagine that Don Draper would have signed off on ads as crass as these two for Pepsi Max. (h/t: Attaturk, Rising Hegemon.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/02/charles-p-pierce-has-a.html

Rudy Giuliani Jimmy Carter Dick Cheney Barack Obama George Soros

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