Bang! Bang! Redux

The new president’s a [CLANG]!

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp
05/24/08

National Public Radio had an interview with Mel Brooks this morning. Brooks, who has to be in his eighties by now, directed, produced, and sometimes wrote such movies as “The Producers” (twice), “Young Frankenstein,” and “History of the World Part I.” He’s still immensely active, and according to himself, has several projects he’s working on.

The interviewer asked him if the rumors were true that he was thinking of turning another of his movies into a musical play, and then back into a musical movie, as he did with “The Producers” The Producers was already halfway to being a musical in the first place, since it dealt with a producer who writes a musical (“Springtime for Hitler”) that is so offensive and tasteless that it is bound to bomb, and the producer would subsequently get rich on the insurance coverage. The play is a monumental success, and the producer is ruined.

Specifically, the interviewer wanted to know if Mel Brooks was planning to make a musical out of “Blazing Saddles.” Brooks’ answer was worthy of John McCain, in that in the space of two paragraphs he managed to confirm and deny the rumors a half a dozen times each.

Then Brooks turned reflective and noted that “Blazing Saddles” was the most “social” of his movies, in that it addressed the utter hatred some people have for black people.

I was listening to this a day after Hillary Clinton made her unfortunate remarks about how it was worth her while to stay in the race because, after all, sometimes races weren’t decided until June, and Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June.

Never mind what she MEANT by it (and it’s hard to imagine that she wasn’t wondering if an Obama assassination might restore the nomination she feels is hers), the subtext was, “I might as well hang around. Who knows? Someone might shoot the nigra.”

It came a week after Mike Huckabee joked about Obama diving for cover from gun shots at the NRA convention.

Hillary did apologize for the remark in quick order. But she apologized to the Kennedys, not Obama. Maybe she figured that since someone was probably going to shoot him anyway, his feelings weren’t that important.

Hillary’s supporters were even worse. One named Larry Johnson wrote:
“By Larry Johnson
Email: larry_johnson@*******.net
Site: http://NoQuarterUSA.net

Wow. Why is it that women get the rap for being a bunch of hysterical whiners, when guys like Senator Obama and his staff are the ones going all wobbly? I’m referring to the latest effort of the Obama crowd to manufacture an incident out of Senator Clinton’s comment that she is staying in the race because we know from history that the reality in June is not the reality in August. Senator Clinton noted in passing the historic fact that Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in California in June of 1968 and that changed what happened at the convention. She also commented that her husband had not wrapped up the nomination until June. So the Obama crowd is wetting itself and wailing that Clinton is implying Obama should be shot. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! So if Hillary makes reference to the bombing of Hiroshima in August of 1945 does that mean she wants to nuke the convention? The weaklings and cowards that surround Obama never cease to amaze me. They flail at the littlest imagined slight and throw a conniption because Hillary has the audacity to mention a historic fact. Anyone who suggests that Hillary is trying to suggest or encourage the notion that Obama be shot is a sick sociopath. She has lived with the burden of Secret Service detail and knows all to well the threat political candidates face. And, most importantly, she is not the kind of person to wish harm for other people.”

Is this any less low or scummy than the filth on the far right who took unbridled joy in Teddy Kennedy’s diagnosis of brain cancer? Michael the Savage Weiner celebrated all week by playing music by the Dead Kennedy’s (to the open disgust of former lead singer Jello Biafra) and snarled that only crybabies would be offended.

Apparently some Hillary supporters have descended to that level. Given that they were victims of such during the nineties, it’s a bit like hearing a Jew call for death camps. Dressing it up by saying that Jews are in a position to sympathize with concentration camp victims doesn’t make it better; it makes it worse. Hillary has been the target of such behavior; that doesn’t justify behaving that way on her behalf.

Race plays a role in all the concern about Obama, of course. Even Hillary openly pandered to what she called “hard working white people.” That the right is openly pandering to racists is no surprise; this is the party, after all, that gave us Willie Horton ads. But to see the Clintons doing it is shocking. We all expected better of them.

Oddly, that brings us back to Mel Brooks and “Blazing Saddles.” Everyone has their personal library of fall-down-funny Mel Brooks lines (“Don’t be dumb, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party”; “Sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you”; “The name is Franken-STEEN”; “What hump, master?”; “It’s GOOD to be the king!”). One of the funniest comes in Blazing Saddles (1974) when the new sheriff, selected by the evil railroad baron who wants the town’s land to cause chaos and discord, is riding to town. The Old Prospector, an old toothless 49er with “local color” dialect so thick as to render him unintelligible (Claude Starrett, Jr), is on the balustrade, and spots the sheriff riding in. Through wild gestures and obscure ranting, he is able to convey to the townspeople on the ground behind the wall that the new sheriff is approaching. The mayor orders the town bell to be rung in celebration and to greet the arrival.

The old prospector pulls out a telescope and peers. The sheriff, played by Cleavon Little, is resplendent in Roy Rogers finery, astride a golden Palomino. The prospector looks again. The sheriff is clearly ... not white. Horrified, the prospector shouts down to the crowd, “The new sheriff’s a...” [CLANG!] The town bell drowns him out. He tries again. “The new sheriff’s a...[CLANG!] One town member turns to another. “What’s Gabby sayin’?” “He’s saying the new sheriff’s a-coming.”

“The new sheriff’s a...[CLANG]”

Eventually, the townspeople see who the new sheriff is, and proceed to start lynching him. He escapes by taking himself hostage and threatening to killed the colored boy if the townspeople don’t let him escape. One woman, who moments earlier was screaming “Hang the [CLANG]!” yells, “Can’t anyone help that poor boy?” and Sheriff Bart lives and goes on to save the day.

If racists have a redeeming feature, it is that they are so incredibly stupid. Brooks’ depiction of the townspeople wasn’t far off the mark.

Hillary, no amount of shouting “The new president’s a ...” is gonna help you. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

Nobody can promise Obama’s safety. But rather than being belittled by Hillary’s remark, he has been put in a very select group of Americans: Abraham Lincoln, John F. and Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luthur King Jr., men who were such powerful forces that the only way the established order could think of to deal with them was to kill them.

But they don’t all get shot, not even in America. Teddy Roosevelt. FDR. Bill Clinton. Not that people didn’t try.

They say you can tell a lot about a man’s personality by his friends, and a lot about his character by his enemies.

Obama’s enemies are elevating him. Only time will tell if he’s worthy of such elevation.

But I kinda doubt Hillary is going to be the vice presidential candidate. Given the constitutional nature of the job, which consists mostly of sitting around waiting for someone to shoot the president, it’s pretty unlikely that Obama will have much interest in having someone there who has already openly been talking about the political advantages in his being shot.