FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

I'm sure I must be someone; now I'm gonna find out who.
•   Amanda Prestigiacomo of The Daily Signal is enraged because the Washington Post ran a long tribute to our outgoing President and didn't do one for George W. Bush back in the day. But the Post is just giving the people what they want, as they say in show biz: Even casual observers will know that Obama is currently very popular, and that his 55% approval rating contrasts starkly with GWB's 34% at the same stage of his Presidency. (I guess WaPo could have done an 18-page "Thanks for the Recession" feature, but what advertiser would have plunked down money for that?) Cripes, even Republicans know this: It's no accident Bush hasn't attended a GOP National Convention since he left office; clearly no one at the RNC wanted to remind the public of how badly they fucked up the country last time they were in charge. In fact, the citizens may have begun to remember what Republicans are all about lately: the incoming Il Douche is at 37% the least-approved incoming President in recorded history. Nonetheless Prestigiacomo feels compelled to cry Liberal Bias, and even Conspiracy:

Perhaps the "fake news" scare was not only an excuse for Hillary Clinton's truly awful candidacy, but a move in a long game effort to get more conservative news suppressed, as if it hasn't been suppressed enough already.

Honey, it's so much simpler than that: If you don't want to get pelted with tomatoes, leave the stage when they start to boo.

•   Robert Tracinski, insufferable culture warrior, bitches out SJW Wars:

In ‘Rogue One,’ The Hollywood Empire Strikes Back 

'Rogue One' is a throwback to the highbrow Hollywood culture that the original 'Star Wars' film rebelled against back in 1977.

Manny Farber he ain't.

Not many people realize that the great conservative filmmakers of our age are George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Forget about their personal political views, which naturally conform to the left-leaning Hollywood consensus. Think purely in esthetic terms. Lucas and Spielberg collaborated on the two great movie franchises that helped shape the culture of the 1980s: Star Wars and Indiana Jones. 

It’s not just that these films were nostalgic tributes to an old-fashioned style of story-telling, the Westerns and movie serials of the pre-Counterculture era. It’s that the stories were told in bright, primary colors...

But this new stuff is about people who believe in something, which is a drag:

That’s the other thing that’s disappointingly different about Rogue One. There’s a lot of talk in this film about “the cause,” including a scene in which the two lead characters have a tiff about who is more down with the struggle. This probably helps Hollywood leftists feel more at home, because lefties pull this sort of thing on each other all the time. But in the original Star Wars films, there was little discussion of or interest in “the cause"...

It's like when Victor Laszlo told Rick "Welcome to the fight" in Casablanca -- gross, right? It should have ended when Rick got Ilsa to fuck him! That's capitalism, baby -- I stick my neck out for no one! I guess it never occurred to Tracinski that Han joined the rebels for something besides pussy. Or maybe (a stretch, I know) Tracinski doesn't actually give a shit about culture at all, and is just getting with the new realities. Come to think of it, force-choking is a sign of American Greatness!  

• Yet another wan column from Jonah Goldberg, who has been observably demoralized since his Liberal Fascism racket got queered by the election of Republican Mussolini. Or maybe it's not demoralization; maybe he's just taking the opportunity, like other great artists working under constraints, of exploring new frontiers -- in Goldberg's case, of intellectual sloth. The column is mostly "Our Friend The Beaver" phumphering ("With a bullpen of writers like that, it’s no wonder that Washington’s farewell ranks among the great works of literary statecraft..."). Kudos to historian Kevin M. Kruse, however, for noticing this:

Of course, the era of radio and television necessitated — or created the perception of necessity — that presidents address the people directly. Whether that amounted to progress is for others to decide. But until Obama, it never occurred to a president to deliver a televised address from anywhere but the Oval Office.

What a maroon. (Also: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this scale model of the Wall here on my desk in the Oval Office, from which all presidential addresses are given.") Oh, and according to Goldberg Obama's speech was "grandiose" and a "campaign rally." He quotes literally about a dozen words of it. I'll be frank, I don't think he saw or read the speech - I think at best it was on in the background while he was playing Battleship with Jay Nordlinger, or trying to get his fist in his mouth (his own, not Nordlinger's, though you never know, Nordlinger sure isn't earning a salary with his writing). And people think liberals are demoralized! At least we don't have to pretend shit is gold.