Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Why did United 93 and Akeelah and the Bee underperform at the box office this weekend?

Much has been made of liberals thinking that it’s "too soon" to make a 9/11-based movie, so United’s lack of support in the blue states was a given. However, despite Rush Limbaugh’s extensive promotion of the film on his radio show, I suspect that many conservatives had no interest in seeing Hollywood’s take on the event that prompted a War on Terror many folks in Hollywood don’t support. If the entertainment industry weren’t so disdainful of the concept of using the US military to stamp out Islamofascism (and the President who has led us into two wars based on that concept), the red states would have probably rushed out in droves to see the film. Surely there were many Republicans who thought the film was simply an attempt to exploit or make money off 9/11; would they have believed this if Hollywood had more people like Bruce Willis and less people like Susan Sarandon? If the right had a general sense that Hollywood endorsed the US military’s anti-terrorism efforts, the film would have been a huge hit. However, conservatives obviously noted that Universal Pictures, which released United 93, just last week released American Dreamz, a film in which Dennis Quaid portrays a caricatured version of the Commander-in-Chief–and also released Steven Spielberg’s Munich, which was seen a veiled criticism of the War on Terror. Couple this with the recent controversy over such films as V for Vendetta, and you can understand why so many conservatives weren’t interested in seeing Hollywood’s vision of 9/11.

As for Akeelah and the Bee, Hollywood writer David Poland has a provocative theory as to why the movie bombed. Sadly, the failure of this movie may cause Hollywood executives to think that only violent black-themed movies will draw money. And that’s a shame.

John Kenneth Galbraith, an influential adviser to JFK and LBJ, passes away at 97. More from the Boston Globe, Harvard Crimson, and Washington Post.

The left-wing blogosphere’s contempt for Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey is a phenomenon that defies all logic. To accept the left’s central premise that Healey is "unfit for command," one would have to buy the notion that the state would be better off with Democrats controlling both the Legislature and the State House than it would be with a Republican in the executive branch. For all the problems the state has now (problems that the left always blames on Mitt Romney and Healey, and never on the disproportionately Democratic legislature), can anyone rationally argue that complete Democratic control of the executive and legislative branches would improve things?

In reality, the lefty bloggers who disparage Healey aren’t interested in making logical accusations against her. They’re just interested in removing anyone affiliated with the Romney Administration from power.

The left insists that Romney has been an utter failure as Governor. They blame him for the state’s imperfect economy. They blame him for taxpayers moving to New Hampshire or down South. They blame him for Massachusetts having a negative reputation in other states.

However, there is no substance to any of these charges. The truth is that the left principally hates Romney for his vocal opposition to the November 2003 state Supreme Court ruling authorizing same-sex marriage.

Progressives cannot countenance Romney’s insistence that the ruling was a lamentable example of judicial activism. They cannot tolerate his endorsement of efforts to democratically nullify the ruling. They cannot stand his condemnation of the decision in speeches made to Republicans in other states.

Opposition to gay marriage is the central reason why the left regards Romney as a contaminant. Because his lieutenant governor, Healey, shares his opposition to gay marriage, she is similarly regarded as a villain, even though she supports civil unions.

The Massachusetts left is, without question, ideologically rigid on the issue of "marriage equality": anyone who doesn’t accept marriage being defined as anything other than one man and one woman is considered a hate-filled bigot, a troglodyte having the same view of homosexuals as the two men who slaughtered Matthew Shepard in 1998. Progressives revile Romney because he doesn’t feel that marriage is, to quote Margaret Marshall, an "evolving paradigm." Since Healey shares his traditional view of marriage, she is likewise loathed.

Bay State liberals think of Romney and Healey as bigots.

Thankfully, Bay State non-liberals know that’s BS.

UPDATE: The Massachusetts Republican Party officially nominates Healey for governor. More from Hub Politics, Jon Keller, and the Boston Globe.

Kids these days…

Julia S. Thorne, author and onetime spouse of Senator John Kerry, passes away at 61. Also, former baseball star Steve Howe passes away at 48.

Does the Massachusetts Legislature think that money grows on trees?

In any field, those at the top are deeply resented by those who aren’t. Whether it’s business, sports, entertainment, or especially politics, obvious superiority is forever held in contempt by obvious inferiority. We’ve seen it in some of the more gratuitous attacks on such figures as Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods. For each accurate criticism of these men, there was a nonsensical nattering by someone who resented their success in their given fields. Excellence is easily envied.

Here in Massachusetts, we’re seeing another lamentable example of quality being loathed, with the incessant left-wing blog attacks on GOP gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey. The dominant theme of the progressive blogosphere’s criticism of Healey is that she’s an in-over-her-head self-promoter with virtually no redeeming values, a cipher who would arguably be "worse" than Mitt Romney in the State House. A Governor Healey, it is implied, would turn the state into the punchline of every joke.

It is impossible to read today’s Boston Globe interview with Healey and come away with the same impression held by the local Air America fanbase. While the Globe obviously loathes certain elements of Healey’s agenda, and its editorial page is a lock to endorse whichever Democratic candidate she’ll face in the fall, the interview by Globe reporter Frank Phillips makes it clear that, if elected, the state will be in good hands under her stewardship.

It is precisely because she will be a better governor than any of the Democratic candidates that the lefty blogosphere has resorted to denigrating her as a lightweight. The left is attempting to engender as much doubt as possible about Healey’s abilities so that voters will conveniently forget that any of the three Democratic candidates, if elected, will simply surrender state leadership to Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Sal DiMasi, just as former Governor Michael Dukakis conceded the Commonwealth to William Bulger in the 1980s. It’s a fundamentally dishonest tactic–one undercut today by the Globe interview.

Kerry Healey is, on the merits, the best overall candidate in the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial race. The progressive blogosphere resents this reality and does not want it acknowledged, thus they have attempted to promote the falsehood that Healey is without merit. A Healey victory in November will force the left to tell the truth.

What’s going on in the Massachusetts public schools? More from the Boston Herald and Washington Times.

UPDATE: Still more from the Herald and the AP.

Secretaries Rice and Rumsfeld visit Iraq. More from the Washington Times.

President Bush responds to Americans’ "gas pains." More from the Washington Post.

UPDATE: Tony Snow is the new White House press secretary. More from Howard Kurtz and Fred Barnes.

SECOND UPDATE: From the Wall Street Journal.

Businesses disapprove of a new do-gooder plan cooked up by the Massachusetts State Legislature.

The Washington Post attempts to declare a black Republican insane. And then they wonder why conservatives think the mainstream media is biased! More from Human Events.

A US District Court judge in Boston throws out a challenge to the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" law.

Terror strikes Egypt. More from the New York Times.

Silent Hill trumps The Sentinel and American Dreamz.