YOUR LIBERAL MEDIA

For the last two days, the allegedly doctrinaire liberal socialist commie pinko New York Times has featured, at the bottom of its front page as well as on its video page (as the lead item), a feature on the making of an anti-Braney Frank ad by right-wing director Ladd Ehlinger Jr., the guy who made the notorious Dale Peterson ad ("We're better than that!").

Here's the gushy, utterly uncritical Times video:



There's also an article, which is similarly uncritical.

Now here's the ad itself:



See, this is the difference between the "liberal media" and the conservative media: for all the blather about how, say, Alan Colmes or Juan Williams brings a liberal perspective to Fox (yes, Roger Ailes actually just called Williams a liberal), Fox is all about relentless advocacy. The Times? Nope -- it sincerely tries to air the other side, even to the extent of producing a four-minute ad for this one-minute ad, fully acknowledging (see the Times video) that the very point of the anti-Frank ad is to raise money from online viewers. Thus, the Times is indirectly fund-raising for Frank's opponent.

As for the ad, I think it isn't funny, but it seems as if it must be funny, so some people may think it's funny. Ehlinger tries to preempt criticism (in the Times video and story) by saying any anti-Frank ad will be called homophobic, but I think the disco-dance motif is somebody's idea of effeminacy (oh, and the dancing body double is a woman), though it's subtler than it could be. Mostly, it's just the politic-ad cliche of animated-opponent-turned-goofy, but with sensory overload.

The soundtrack seems to be trying to emulate "Bale Out," the dance remix of Christian Bale's on-air tantrum during the filming of Terminator: Salvation, but "Bale Out" is smarter; it has a good beat and you can dance to it:



The Barney Frank ad just seems like a slapdash assemblage of soundbites, though I guess it all make sense to wingers who've spent long hours absorbing Fox propaganda about Frank.

I'm so glad The New York Times shared all this with me.