Scouring the Soaps
You have to wonder if the politicians about which so much is being written every day read their own press. They surely read their own press releases. Those are the only media missives in which they’re likely to appear in any kind of favorable light. Even the Barack-beatifying mainstream media makes Obama the Overreaching look ridiculous, simply by its relentless, unmitigated adulation. In its haste to sanctify his every move, the MSM provides enough incongruent pieces that even those of us who aren’t allergic to jigsaw puzzles get hives trying to figure out what – if anything other than destroying the economy, transforming the United States into the planet’s pushover, and self-aggrandizement – the poor fellow is up to. Nevertheless, despite the fact that most politicians must get the same willies from the news that they get from looking in the mirror (”I did WHAT?!”), methinks Madame Hillary’s at least been sneaking a peek at Soap Opera Digest.
In last Thursday’s episode of the increasingly popular daytime drama, As The Power Turns, our indefatigable protagonist – the unctuously charming Barack the Beguiling – was discovered taking trips abroad without a broad, namely his Secretary of State. (Viewers of the photo in the embedded hyperlink are sworn not to tell the producers of As the Power Turns that Hillary is about to re-create the Elsa Lanchester roles in the soon-to-be-announced re-make of The Bride of Frankenstein.) While sympathizers of Hillary the High and Dry were scandalized over the jilting, ratings went through the roof. (Rule #1 for drawing a crowd: if you want to attract sharks, put some blood in the water.) The producers were flooded with calls, e-mails, text messages, and Gripe-o-Grams demanding to know why Hillary the Humiliated had been taken down so many pegs after all she’s been through. She stayed married to Willie the Womanizer long enough to ride his coattails right up to the point at which she scared a good many of us into thinking she might have a shot at Willie’s White House. Talk about close shaves! The only thing worse than Obama the Omnipotent on Pennsylvania Avenue would have been Clinton the Conceited: Part Deux. Whew!
Returning to our story: Hillary the Helpless was so emboldened by the public outcry at Obama the Oily’s double-dealing that she conducted a clandestine meeting with the show’s scriptwriters, resulting in the insertion of a nearly heretical plot twist. (Drama, thy name is Hillary.) As a result, in yesterday’s episode, Hillary the Hermetic – seemingly impervious to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – let it be known that she will re-claim her position as the rightful heir to The Power of Bubba. (The plot convolution was revealed by the same source that published this photo of Barack the Bulwark steering Hillary the Hapless clear of an “accident” dropped by the White House pooch, Bo. Said accident was so malevolent it was referred to by the White House Press Corps as “an atomic pile”.)
In the speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that was written into Wednesday’s episode, Hillary the Hopeful expanded on Obama the Oligarch’s policy of talking in circles and vague platitudinous generalities long enough to convince global audiences they’re saying exactly what anyone and everyone wants to hear. She re-introduced her tried and trite notion that it takes a village in an effort to convince the Council that foreign relations can be conducted like government-run social programs for children (the idea was enthusiastically embraced) – and to bolster flagging sales of the tenth-anniversary edition of her book. And a scriptwriter who asked not to be identified until after he wins the Understatement of the Year Award said there was one more, relatively minor agenda item for the speech: “Beating back a persistent perception that Clinton has been kept in the administration’s shadows.” Note to Hillary: especially under the reign of Obama the Occultist, perception is reality. If you’re being kept in the administration’s shadows, that’s not an interpretation: it’s a fact.
Given the predilection of soap operas to protract story lines over weeks and months, don’t expect radical changes to occur on As the Power Turns this week, or even next. Chances are there will be much back-room finagling, to which the scriptwriters may or may not make us privy. And odds are that Hillary’s star turn in The Bride of Frankenstein will hit the theaters before she assumes any significant juice in Obama the Omnipotent’s adminstration. We suggest she keep her eye on Soap Opera Digest to see how her speech sat with audiences. If she’s not going to be a player, she and Wayward Willie can do what the Buchanans did in The Great Gatsby:
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made ….
P.S. Hillary neglected to acknowledge this comment from Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations: “The United States is declining as a nation and a world power with mostly sighs and shrugs to mark this seismic event. Astonishingly, some people do not appear to realize that the situation is all that serious.” Gee. I hope that doesn’t hurt ratings for As the Power Turns.