{"id":14210,"date":"2010-03-08T07:16:02","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T14:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=14210"},"modified":"2010-07-02T13:59:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-02T19:59:00","slug":"up-in-flames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/03\/up-in-flames\/","title":{"rendered":"Up in flames"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Sarah Lenti<\/p><\/div>\n

The blog that I was planning to write last night went up in flames\u2026<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

The plan was to write a rapid response piece to all the snarky, ill-willed and unfounded political comments that were supposed to be made at last night\u2019s 82nd\u00a0Academy Awards <\/a>(following in true form after eight years of disgusting commentary on an administration that, quite frankly, gave wind to The\u00a0Hurt Locker<\/a> \u2013\u00a0and, oh, by the way \u2013 the\u00a0democratic elections\u00a0that took place in Iraq yesterday).<\/p>\n

In expectation of writing this exciting blog post, I e-mailed what was supposed to be my opening few sentences to Heath:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if you\u2019re going to talk about it \u2013 politics \u2013 and, at the\u00a0Academy Awards, no less\u2026 then I am going to blog about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sister and I have always believed that Washington D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people.\u00a0And, on the flip, that\u00a0Hollywood\u00a0is the Ivy Leagues for not-so-smart people.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet the games begin. I am keeping tally of all the good, bad and ugly comments made at this 82nd Academy Awards.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The problem: There was absolutely zero fuel for the fodder. And, therefore, my original blog post went up in the air, or up in flames. Take your pick.<\/p>\n

For @(#@\u2019s sake \u2013\u00a0Alec Baldwin <\/a>didn\u2019t even have anything outrageous, offensive or on-point for me to argue with. Neither did\u00a0Tina Fey<\/a>. Why?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Is this Administration simply immune from comment? Or\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022 Is the Academy just trying to set an example for Congress? (You know \u2013 let\u2019s play nice, let\u2019s vote from the heart, let\u2019s not be uber-political or money-derived!)<\/p>\n

Instead of any fire(y) political mish-mash, we were fed a very odd\/wrong five minutes of\u00a0interpretive dance\u00a0torture. (Wow\u2026 the Academy needs to fix that next year. What was that? If anyone has any insight at all, please comment.)<\/p>\n

The take-aways from the night, for me, were actually astounding. I won\u2019t attempt to blog on them all in one evening\u2026 so stay tuned for additional commentary later in the week. That said, let me make just a few observations on our winner,\u00a0The Hurt Locker.<\/p>\n

Observation 1 \u2013 at a time when the Congress is telling us that spending is more, the academy just demonstrated that spending\u00a0less\u00a0is more.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Wall Street Journal<\/a> notes\u00a0that, \u201cIn a David-and-Goliath style showdown, \u2018The Hurt Locker\u2019 became the lowest-grossing film ever to win the Oscar for best picture, beating out the most successful movie in history, \u2018Avatar\u2019 for the film industry\u2019s highest honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 At a time when the economy is in such distress, it was nice and rather comforting to view a non-flashy flic.<\/p>\n

Observation 2 \u2013 at a time when America is struggling with how to think about Iraq,\u00a0Afghanistan and the legacy of what is left to endure in the region, a woman\u00a0(Kathryn Bigelow<\/a>) just produced a movie that, in her own words, \u201cavoided political persuasion\u2026 neither left, nor right.\u201d Bravo.<\/p>\n

\u2022 How wonderful.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Thank you for producing a movie that gives credit where and to whom credit is due. Our military.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Thank you for not making this a political commentary.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Thank you also for giving us insight into importance of our servicemen. (The movie really was all about servicemen… and she caught it\u2026 more on that later.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Also, thank you for giving us insight as to the dangers of what war can do to the psyche of men. The last scene \u2013 the crib\u00a0scene \u2013 said it all. I\u2019d rather trade in my son for an IED souvenir.<\/p>\n

Lenti<\/em><\/a> currently works as a policy consultant and advisor to Republican Party leaders, executives and candidates. She has worked in New Mexico and other states on presidential and congressional races and has a background in national security. Contact her at <\/em>sarah.lenti@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was planning to write a rapid response piece to all the snarky, ill-willed and unfounded political comments that were supposed to be made at last night\u2019s 82nd Academy Awards. The problem: There was absolutely zero fuel for the fodder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1196,1192,181],"tags":[158],"class_list":["post-14210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-commentary","category-the-savvy","tag-iraq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}