Election ‘08 Entertainment: The Obamans Release an Almost Documentary
By Hannah Jewell October 7, 2008 | 12:21 am
Posted in: Miscellaneous
The Obama campaign released this 13-minute documentary yesterday, concerning John McCain’s involvement in the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s, entitled “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis.” While this post is stepping out of my designated realm of theater, it is in all respects relevant to “Entertainment,” and I couldn’t resist taking a look at the artistry of this minimentary. Instead of analyzing the video’s crap-your-pants politics, I’m looking at how it went about inducing the crapping of voters’ pants. There are plenty of places in the “real” media where you can be told just how to react to the politics of the video. They’ve taken care of it. Now let’s get artsy.
The documentary opens with a clear sign that the viewer should be worried: slighty blurry close-ups of scary words in that ominous typewriter font. Whenever that font appears, something’s up. Something dirty and Nixonesque, like we saw in the typewritten close-ups of “All the President’s Men.” (Unfortunately, there is no Robert Redford to save the day this time.) Some subtle instrument is oscillating between two notes in A minor under sound effects of typewriters and camera shutters, and even more things are being zoomed in on. Suddenly there’s a photo of Charles Keating, the story’s slack-jawed, shifty-eyed villain and “a very nasty, fraudulent guy,” seen below. The scene is set.
Seriously, what’s wrong with this guy’s jaw?
We then hear Senator Howell Heflin, the then-chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, saying to the Keating Five in his charming southern lilt that they “traded yo’ hona and yo’ good nayme” and are “responsibuhl fo’ the savings and loans fail-yus of scandahlous propawshuns.” We see the slighty-less-old, slightly-more-handsome McCain looking evah so naughty, like a slouching high school troublemaker in trouble for beating up dorks.
The documentary is narrated mostly by William Black, Ph.D., who was the Federal Banking Regulator from 1984-1994. After about six minutes of looking at his wisely furrowed brow and compassionately patchy beard, we forget who he is. Who’s this guy? Why doesn’t his shirt quite fit him? The video’s dependence on just this one interviewee is a definite flaw. (Also, did anyone else notice the several references Black made to dropping acid?)
In the end, the video doesn’t live up to the mystery and allure of its first few minutes. The urgency of the music had me expecting someone to get shot. I thought we’d find out McCain had strangled a kitten and drop-kicked a baby. I thought we’d see Keaton remove his human mask to reveal his alien identity, then Dick Cheney would explode out of his chest in a tidal wave of financier juices.
Of course, what did happen involved the loss of billions of dollars of taxpayer money in an orgy of patronage, corruption and fraud. This is shocking in its own right. But the documentary isn’t focused enough to make this point clear to us cross-eyed Americans. We’re used to emotionally-charged campaign ads with guilty-looking politicians, simple words, a throaty narrator and accusatory cellos.
This documentary thankfully isn’t one of those ads, but it also doesn’t dig deep enough to keep us enthralled for 13 minutes. The creepy music cannot keep us emotionally on edge for that long. The video isn’t short enough to be shown on that TV-within-a-TV on CNN, and it’s not long enough to teach us anything new. It hasn’t even received much attention, thus leaving the Obama campaign looking guilty of mud-slinging, without even having destroyed anyone’s political career.
Better luck next time. Was anyone more impressed with the rhetoric of this documentary?
Sources: Obama Campaign, YouTube
Tags: accusatory cellos, documentary, election
The documentary is accurate
The final report of the Senate Ethics Committee was inaccurate and minimized McCain’s criminality when it stated:
“Sen. McCain exercised poor judgment in intervening with regulators without first inquiring as to the Bank Board’s position in the case in a more routine manner.”
The fact is McCain had been briefed as to the magnitude of the crime prior to his unethical and illegal actions.
The only reason De Concini had more culpability was that he is the one who spoke for the 5 (Keating 5) using the word “We” when asking the regulators to take no enforcement action relative to the known crimes of Keating and the Lincoln Savings and Loan.
McCain has a long history of trying to maintain deniability (similar to GWB) as he breaks every rule and Commandment.
He also has a long history of lying about his prior behaviors, minimizing his wrong doing, and telling completely different stories depending on his audience, whether it is about his behavior and his treatment as a POW, his (adult) life-long history of philandering, or his brief period of bigamy.
Like GWB, he has always relied on impunity for his bad character, lies, corruption, and crimes.
Look at his advisors, not just his economic advisors who are largely responsible for the current economic crisis, but his foreign policy and other advisors. His terrible judgment (most generous interpretation) demonstrated in the choice of advisors would bring certain disaster(s) if he became president. We would be further fleeced by corporations and suffer unimaginable hardship from the many wars of opportunity that he, along with his advisors that brought us Iraq and covert wars around the world want to wage world-wide.
This is not a beauty contest. Pay attention to the content without deterring to whether we are emotionally impressed with the rhetoric.
Enough!!
JK
Comment by JK — October 7, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
Of course the content is important. No one is denying that. But if it’s not transmitted to the public effectively, the mainstream American public will not take note. Politics is rhetoric.
Comment by Gina — October 7, 2008 @ 2:02 pm