Quote of the Day

“The battle for the American mind right now is between talk show hosts and comedians,” said Alex Foxworthy, a 26-year-old doctoral student from Richmond, Va. “I choose the comedians.”

From the NYTimes coverage of the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear."

Amen.

"Are you prepared to see your dwellings in flames?"

With all of the BS political ads running these days, it's a helpful reminder to realize that a bygone era of civility and gentlemanly rules never existed. Dirty politics in the U.S. is not new. In fact, it's a very American pastime. The video speaks for itself. True story. Enjoy.

I miss choir...

Here is PS22, a really great public school children's choir from Staten Island, singing Coldplay's "Viva La Vida."  Enjoy.

This is an ad for Soy Sauce?!?

This is what happens to a society when it's culture and economy moves from an agrarian rural society circa 1820 to a modern industrial economy circa 1950s in the span of 10-15 years (during World War II and shortly thereafter).  Just so we're all clear folks, we're talking about our friend Japan.

Click here to enjoy the wonder of it all. Kikkoman Soy Sauce.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish

1,000 Pageviews!

Hi Everybody,

I forgot to mention when we hit our one year anniversary on July 24th 2010, so I figured I would do some sort of announcement when we hit one-thousand pageviews.  Well that moment has arrived and I wanted to thank you all for checking out and reading this blog from time to time.  I want to thank my blogging colleague Mike Flynn, 1) for being my friend, but 2) for starting his blog at the same time and being a constant source of input as well as inspiration.  If you haven't checked out his work at Pale Thunder, you're all missing out on some great informal movie reviews and political commentary.

I also want to thank my three readers who have been with me since the beginning; Adam, Colum, and Gram. Adam, thank you for your sarcastic input and conservative wit. You keep me on my toes!  Colum, it's the happiest part of my blogging day when I see that I have one person reading my blog in England and I know that that person is you!  And Gram, thanks for your constant love and support, I hope that my crossing the line here has not upset you on too many occasions!

But overall, thanks to everyone who's checked Ernie Crossing the Line out.  Please feel free to write me and write more comments in this space.  I look forward to having more reader input and will try to do better at putting up more media and commentary on comedy and music.  Also, don't forget to check out blogs of friends which can be found on the right of the page.  Their topics range from the subtleties of enjoying Waffle House, to movie reviews, to governance issues in contemporary Africa.  There's something for absolutely everyone.

Again, thank you for reading and we hope to keep you entertained for another 1,000 pageviews!

Sincerely,

Dave (Ernie)

A Class Act

President Obama making his contribution to (famed sex columnist) Dan Savage's noble It Gets Better project, to help bullied gay youth, on Youtube.

Although he's cautiously stepping towards a real gay rights agenda on Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to the consternation of some on the left, I think his ninja moves behind the scenes will provide for a more lasting change as I stated here (rather obscenely) in a previous post. (Meaning Grandmas should not read the aforementioned post!)

Nerd in Chief

Peter Baker's must read interview with President Obama.  This interview was used for his NY Times Magazine piece, "Education of a President"

On what he would tell the Barack Obama of December 2008:

"Now in retrospect, I could have told Barack Obama in December of 2009 that if you already have a third of the [stimulus] package as tax cuts, then the Republicans, who traditionally are more comfortable with tax cuts, may just pocket that and attack the other components of the program. And it might have been better for us not to include tax cuts in the original package, let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts, and then say, O.K., you know, we’ll compromise and give you your tax cuts, even though we had already proposed them.

And if you recall, when we initially unveiled what the Recovery Act would look like — in fact, that a third of it was tax cuts — Mitch McConnell actually was, as he phrased it, pleasantly surprised that sort of traditional Republican idea had been included. But very quickly that pleasant surprise turned into attacks on the infrastructure or the aid to the states or what have you.

I would have told Barack Obama back in 2009 that just be warned, structuring the tax cut the way we did, where people basically got a small bump in their paycheck every two weeks, was the right thing to do economically, but politically it meant that nobody knew that they were getting a tax cut. And in fact what ended up happening was six months into it or nine months into it, people had thought we had raised their taxes instead of cutting their taxes."

On whether he has a communication problem or a policy problem:

I think that, when I reflect back on the last two years, I do think that given how much stuff was coming at us, we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration — and I take responsibility for this; this was blowing from the top — that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular.

And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics, and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion. And so there are probably areas where we could have been more effective than we’ve been.