Sunday, September 4, 2011

Lady Gaga, Something About Foreign Policy: Sandra Bullock


Lady Gaga andSandra Bullock: What do these two attractive female celebrities have in common? They were both featured in the headlines of conservative opinion columns today! Let us investigate why Sandra Bullock and Lady Gaga were in the headlines.

Wait... you didn't actually this was going to be, like, actually about Lady Gaga or Sandra Bullock, did you? No: It is about David Brooks' column in the New York Times today, and Bret Stephens' in the Wall Street Journal. Brooks' column: "The Sandra Bullock Trade"; Stephens' Column: "Lady Gaga Versus Mideast Peace." Two conservative columnists, two references to culturally relevant female celebrities. What is going on? Let's break it down.

What You Think It Will Be About: Something about neo-Nazi strippers and motorcycles and stuff.

What It's Actually About:David Brooks' Times column is about research which weighs personal vs. professional success. It has absolutely nothing to do with Sandra Bullock, except for the fact that Sandra Bullock is professionally successful but has a husband who did a bunch of strippers. Brooks reveals that scientists have shown that rich people can be unhappy if they don't have a fulfilling personal life. This somehow leads to the conclusion that "governments keep initiating policies they think will produce prosperity, only to get sacked, time and again, from their spiritual blind side." Government is bad.

Attractive Female Celebrity-related Lede:

Two things happened to Sandra Bullock this month. First, she won an Academy Award for best actress. Then came the news reports claiming that her husband is an adulterous jerk. So the philosophic question of the day is: Would you take that as a deal?

Number of Times Attractive Female Celebrity's Name Appears In Article: 2
Attractive Celebrity Relevance Quotient: 0
Google Pagerank*: 4/10

*Not an actual Pagerank. For illustrative purposes only.

What You Think It Will Be About: Lady Gaga wore a hat to the Tween Appreciation Awards that was made to look like an Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement. The hat got slimed, enraging Palestinians and Israelis alike.

What It Is Actually About:Bret Stephens Wall Street Journal article argues that we should let Israeli continue to expand its settlements in the West Bank because this does not cause nearly as much anti-American sentiment as the fact that American women are sluts. Or, as Islamist writer and apparent 50s pulp-fiction author Sayyid Qutb put it: "the American Temptress". So, we should either imprison Lady Gaga immediately, or just shut up about the settlements.

Attractive Female Celebrity-related Lede:

Pop quiz-What does more to galvanize radical anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world: (a) Israeli settlements on the West Bank; or (b) a Lady Gaga music video?

Number of Times Female Celebrity's Name Appears In Article: 4
Attractive Celebrity Relevance Quotient: 3
Google Pagerank: 7/10

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