Posted on 07/24/2010 8:39:11 AM PDT by moneyrunner
Kathleen Parker is an incurable Liberal suck-up but her latest column Voters elevate the ordinary has an inkling of what happened to the United States. Kathleen, poor thing, has a good thought, but when she takes it out to play, she lets it get away from her.
It’s all about “Being There,”... According to Parker, Chauncey Gardiner, the genial but retarded gardener from “Being There” is Alvin Green.
And that’s the point at which Parker’s though begins to run off.
Alvin Green, the man who won the nomination to be the Democrat Senate candidate from South Carolina, who didn’t campaign and is totally unknown, is not, despite Parker’s desire to enlist him in her story, a Chauncey Gardiner model.
Parker: “Being There” is the tall tale of a gardener who becomes a favorite to run for U.S. president following an unlikely series of misunderstandings. The first occurs when Chauncey is turned out of the mansion where he has lived (and gardened) his whole life upon his benefactor’s death. When someone asks his name, “Chance the Gardener” is heard as “Chauncey Gardiner.” Thereafter, everyone Gardiner meets projects his or her own needs and expectations onto this kind but empty-headed “nobody.” In their minds, Gardiner is the wealthy aristocrat they need him to be, his mundane gardening observations sublime metaphors filled with timeless wit and wisdom.
If you have heard or read about Alvin Green, you know he really is an “empty headed nobody.” But no one believes otherwise. No one thinks of him as an aristocrat. No one interprets his words as wisdom. The big mystery about Green, who lives with his father, is how he managed to get the money to file his candidacy.
But a light bulb went in my head as Parker brought my memory back that movie.
(Excerpt) Read more at moneyrunner.blogspot.com ...
Chauncey was a very kind person.
Chauncey Gardiner and Obama couldn’t possibly be more dissimilar.
Correct, Chance was a kind person, not in search of power. Much more to the point Obama is Paul from Six Degrees of Separation. A con man intent of wealth and power who uses his charms on his victims, and of whom we learn nothing, except for his gift of false empathy and his need to take the wealth of others.
Both are dim-witted (Obama is completely dim-witted in terms of economics and national security) and both are blank slates onto which people project the characteristics they would like to see in a person.
Original F.Gump !!!
"I vacation at Martha's Vineyard".
Obama’s “green shoots” always reminded my of Chance’s “Yes! There will be growth in the spring!”
Now that you mention it....that’s true. My initial thought surrounded their personalities.
I actually like Chauncey! And I can't stand Barky (literally makes me nauseous).
No. Everything worked for Chauncey. Nothing works for Obama.
Being There is, by far, my favorite movie. I don't know why it strikes me as so funny, probably that it is so dry, and the elites in it come off as naive, not wise.
Sellers' deadpanned lines including "honky," and the faces of the doctors, is too much. That, and using the teevee remote to "click off" the muggers.
Obama is no Chauncey Gardiner. Chauncey had humility and presumed his abilities were quite limited.
He hypnotized the people by using neurolinguistic programming
“Good God! Barack Obama is Chauncey Gardiner!”
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boym did you get a wrong #!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
...and in the end of the movie, Chauncey walked off across the water.
One of my favorite older movies. Everyone thought every simple statement made by Chauncey was deeply, intuitively brilliant and about their issues.
Oh yes. There are definitely dissimilarities. But the point I tried to make is that Obama, like Chauncey, was a reflection of people's conceptions ... of what they thought he was, not who he actually was.
There's one other similarity. Note that Chauncey was considered much wiser, smarter than he was. People are still calling Obama smart even after he demonstrates that he's not. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, a large group of people are afraid to tell the truth in fear of being called dumb .... or racist.
See my reply below.
My email to Kathleen:
Your brilliant reference to “Being There” is an extraordinary literary device for understanding the vacuity of the American electorate vis a vis their election of an absolute nobody to the Presidency. Thank you for this remarkable insight.
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