Dear Arianna,
You're so nice, and I feel like we have this good thing going, so this isn't going to be easy, but it has to be said. I told you a lie on Tuesday.
I never meant to hurt you. That was the last thing I wanted. But if you'll just calm down and let me explain.
It wasn't my fault.
It was that asshole Bill Kristol.
Can you... can you... can you just let me talk? Okay.
Remember how I was blogging about that Kid Rock video, the one they show before every movie in America, where Kid carries on about the National Guard kicking ass, and all you can think is, "If we could wring out his hat, we wouldn't need foreign oil?" Well, I said a lot of things, because I was angry... we were both angry, if you recall... and one of them was:
"Which is why they -- we -- hired an Academy Award-winning director, James Mangold, and a brilliant, Academy Award-nominated cinematographer, Wally Pfister."
Well, James Mangold did direct American Warrior, and he'll have to answer for that. But he's never won an Academy Award. He's never even been nominated for an Academy Award. He directed Walk the Line, and Reese Witherspoon won an Academy Award, and that was the beginning of the end for her and Ryan.
That and the fact that she couldn't trust him. The way you can't trust me. If I'm going to go around lying all the time.
I know. I know. This it how it started with you and Newt Gingrich.
Where did I get the fool idea that James Mangold won an Academy Award? I checked the places I looked things up on Tuesday.
-Advertising Age
-USA Today
-A trade magazine called Shoot
-A website for an ad agency called LM&O
-A press release from a marketing company called 2ergo
-Some other press releases
-The National Humanities Alliance
-The National Endowment for the Arts
-Commondreams.org.
-I knew that John Wayne shot parts of Sands of Iwo Jima at Republic in Studio City (now CBS Studio Center), but I looked it up just to be sure.
-The Laurie Anderson quote is from "Sharkey's Day."
And, please forgive me, Arianna, it turns out I used one other source, too...
How to Woo a WarriorThe National Guard, Now Showing at the Multiplex
by Justin ShubowNow airing in theaters before the coming attractions, "American Warrior" is a stunningly unorthodox commercial for the U.S. National Guard. Directed by Academy Award-winner James Mangold, the two-minute-and-35-second music video combines a kick-ass song by Kid Rock with visuals that cut between the rock star in concert, Dale Earnhardt Jr. braving danger in a stock-car race, and guardsmen deployed at home and abroad...
The Weekly Standard
Volume 014, Issue 08
11/03/2008
What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking. I guess I just assumed even they couldn't be wrong about everything. Especially something so easy to check. At least not in the lede.
I know, the only way to tell when William Kristol is lying is when his horrible lipless skull is clapping up and down, but come on.
I've learned my lesson. You can trust websites and performance artists; you can trust your memory; you can trust ad agencies and press releases, but you can never, ever believe anything in The Weekly Standard.
NOT as fast mind you, but I kept expecting to hear "F**K YEAH ever at the end of each chorus line. HORRIBLE video but I am sure there are those Dale SR, loving, Toby Keith loving rednecks out there who raised a Bud to the commercial. And maybe that was the target audience.
The learned occupations demand complete accuracy 100% of the time. If you're not 100% accurate 100% of the time-it's good bye credibility(?). Critics are always cruel. It's their stock in trade.
Does it go a little something like this at headquarters? "Don't worry about if there are WMD's or not, just be sure you spell Al Quaeda and not Al Quadda?
breathtaking! Anything and everything, you ever wanted to know, and stuff maybe
that you don't want to know about anyone that's ever been in front, behind, above
and below a camera is in there. If you would have checked, you might have just
discovered like I have that this is the guy that really, REALLY made Meg Ryan
look horrible in Kate and Leopold, which is quite a feat in itself (aside from the
horrible LA plastic surgery that is being foist on some of the worlds aging
beauty's) Next time, IMDB it! I can't believe you have gone there and looked
up your own listing!
lb.
For Academy Award nominations and winners, it's best to refer to the Academy's own website:
http://www.oscars.org/
I tell this because the guy was incensed that I would fact check his hogwash. Assuming he didn't make it up on the spot, it was much more likely to be a Rush gibe than an honest mistake. In truth, I don't know the guy's politics or opinions in general; he may even have voted for Democrats in every election since he turned 21 (too old to have voted at 18).
The _Weekly Standard_ fluff could be of the same sort: mistaken recollection or deliberate misrepresentation. But both serve to remind that EVERY statement inconsistent with your progressive judgement or coming from a questionable source needs to be fact checked. Preferably in front of the statement-maker: the best use of RIM technology that I can think of.
Thank you for giving me such a wonderful image to distract myself from what emerges from said skull. And good on you for the correction, seriously.
Next thing you know the sky will turn blue and bears will poop in the woods.
Wring the bell. Literacy is dead.