Shorter Andrew Ferguson
Posted on March 17th, 2008 by Tintin
The Wit and Wisdom of Barack Obama
- The real proof that Barack Obama is “a master of le baloney” is that something he said on the campaign trail doesn’t translate into French.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
Gavin adds: Bonus Andrew “Le Penseur” Ferguson:
What, after all, does “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” mean, precisely? My hunch is that the sentence is one of those things that no one will admit to being confused by, like the movies of Godard or the tenor-sax solos of John Coltrane, lest your peers think you’re a loser or a moron. Certainly Obama fans won’t admit how obscure the sentence is–though several have claimed that it’s lifted from a prophecy of the Tribal Elders of the Hopi Indians. Hopi prophecies are famously obscure.
It’s all Chuck Shumer’s fault!
OH NO!!
Is Andy on to the fact that all of Barack’s rhetoric is to hide the fact we LIBS are planning to round up all the Bushpigs after the election and ship off to Iraq in cargo containers?
//What, after all, does “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” mean, precisely? My hunch is that the sentence is one of those things that no one will admit to being confused by, like the movies of Godard or the tenor-sax solos of John Coltrane, lest your peers think you’re a loser or a moron.//
Ah, glorious wingnuttery. Cluelessness and obtuseness are virtues!!
“See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
Could someone tell me how that translates into French?
I don’t feel like translating it into French, and I’m pretty sure its original language was German.
Of course, words are all that a politician has. The key question is whether those words connect to some sort of matching action.
You can connect JFK (“Ask not . . .”) to the Peace Corp
Or LBJ (“Great Society”) to the Civil Rights Act and War on Poverty
Clinton (“It’s the Economy, stupid”) to long period of growth ending in a surplus.
As for GOP, connect Nixon (“Peace with Honor”) to years more war and ignominious withdrawal
Reagan (“Gov’t is not the solution; its the problem”) to bigger government, bigger deficits, two tax increases
Bush 41 (“No new taxes”) to new taxes
Bush 43 (“Compassionate Conservative”) to Guantanamo, torture, and rendition.
So words mean something. But only Democrats seem to mean what you think they mean.
Coltrane’s baritone sax solos, on the other hand, are totally accessible.
Ferguson writes, “When Obama’s supporters say “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” what they mean is that in the long roll call of history, from Aristotle and Heraclitus down through Augustine and Maimonides and Immanuel Kant and the fellows who wrote the Federalist Papers, we’re number one!”
That’s how this pasty dipshit interprets that statement? That we’re saying we’re smarter than Aristotle? Jeez. All this wingnut ink spilled about how the left is all about government handouts, and then when a guy campaigns with a slogan about self-reliance their first response is an adolescent, “oh, you think you’re soooooo great.”
I don’t know why I click those goddam links when they always make me so tired.
Why … why … none of these notes translate into French!
This entire album is incomprehensible gibberish.
Hey hey hey hey hey, you leave the ‘Trane out of this, you fucking whore.
My hunch is that the sentence is one of those things that no one will admit to being confused by, like the movies of Godard or the tenor-sax solos of John Coltrane, lest your peers think you’re a loser or a moron.
Shorter Andrew Ferguson: “I’m a loser and a moron.”
Also, why doesn’t he just come out and say, “I like my movies and music to be as stupid and boring as possible.”
The classic of this particular genre is, of course, Bush’s famous “The french don’t have a word for entrepreneur”
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”
Huh? It is self explanatory!!!
We meaning Obama you and I (We is the shorter) are the “ones” or “Obama you and I” that Obama you and I have been waiting for. DUH!!!
Besides it is inspirational it means that this larger then life group that you and I in and how great it all is that “WE” have all come together and spank McMuffins-wars-a-lot……….. Hello???
What a Dumb-ass…… What the? Why are we subjected to this crap?
My hunch is that the sentence is one of those things that no one will admit to being confused by, like the movies of Godard or the tenor-sax solos of John Coltrane, lest your peers think you’re a loser or a moron.
There is nothing confusing about a 59 minute version of My Favorite Things, you shameless philistine.
Shorter Fergie: Music is hard.
Just saying.
All you Liberals were predicting a depresssion today. The Dow is moving up, so is the Nasdaq.
It’s only the efforts of foreign investors to crash our economy that concern some people.
Bonddad loses yet again.
Hmmm… maybe I’m looking to much at the “big picture” here, but… WHO GIVES A RATS ASS WHETHER OR NOT WHAT ANY POLITICIAN SAYS CAN BE TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH?!?!
I mean, jumping Jesus Christ on a motherfucking Segway! What’s next… are we going to worry what something Hillary says can be translated into Swahili?…or what McCain says can be translated into Esperanto?
…and besides, I thought the French were “cheeze-eating surrender monkeys who can’t wait for the Caliphate to return so that everyone in the world will be forced to act according to Sharia law.” So why are we care about them again?
Wrong site, Gary, you ridiculous putz.
The classic of this particular genre is, of course, Bush’s famous “The french don’t have a word for entrepreneur”
Alas, it’s a UL.
Let’s stick to the stupid things he *actually* has said– God knows there’s more than enough of those to go around…
“Well, heh, I can’t understand it, and that must either mean that I’m too stupid to understand it, or, heh, that it’s meaningless! And, heh, it couldn’t be the former, could it? RIght guys? ….Right? ….Guys?
…Guys…?”
“The real proof that Barack Obama is “a master of le baloney” is that something he said on the campaign trail doesn’t translate into French.”
Can’t say it in French, what’s an enterprising wingnut to do. Along with Kristol’s claim today that Obama was at one of Wright’s mean sermons when actually he was in Miami. Two places at once, now that’s really scary. Has to to an Omen that BO is the Hopi messianic return from the underworld of the Good Bahana ( cool white guy) . Dern, that won’t work either.
Wingnut prophecies are famously retarded.
Does Domino’s offer an employee 401k program, GArY?
Darn you, legalize, you just used the joke I was going to use.
Now I’ve got to work for the funny.
Andrew Ferguson is so right: [Obama] lives in an era when the public memory has shrunk to a length of days or weeks. Especially in American politics, policed by a posse of commentators and reporters who crave novelty above all, the past is a blank; every day is Groundhog Day, bringing shocking discoveries of things that have happened over and over again.
Ferguson has apparently forgotten that Mahatma Ghandi said We need to be the change we wish to see in the world, expressed also as Be the change you wish to see.
I suspect Obama’s observation that no one is going to come along to save us but ourselves is related to this. But does Ghandi’s exhortation translate into Polish? Until we try, we can’t know if it makes sense.
Here’s another test for Ferguson: Can any of Bush’s words be translated into English?
I’m pretty sure that “goat-blowing assclown” doesn’t really translate into French, either, but that in no way lessens its rhetorical value in describing Ferguson.
“…no one will admit to being confused by… the movies of Godard or the tenor-sax solos of John Coltrane…”
Is anyone with an IQ above 90 “confused” by Godard or Coltrane? They might not be to your taste, but what’s confusing about them? Godard’s movies have characters and plot; Coltrane’s solos have a theme and variations. How are they more confusing than Shakespeare or Bach? To anyone but a cultural moron, I mean.
Some of Trane’s later free-jazz work can fit at right-angles with a listener’s mind, but still I don’t think “confusing” is the word for it.
Also not all Godard films have characters or plot.
I’m not a big fan of free jazz, but it’s not because I don’t understand it.
I just don’t really like it, since I’m a real sucker for things like melody.
There is nothing confusing about a 59 minute version of My Favorite Things, you shameless philistine.
He played My Favorite Things on soprano sax, so any red-blooded, NASCAR-lovin’, Idol-votin’, Pibb-guzzlin’, God-worshippin’ red-stater can get behind that. Ferguson is talkin’ his tenor sax solos, which defy comprehension. The entirety of the Giant Steps or A Love Supreme LPs, those have never caught on!
I suspect that some people, especially wingers, find Godard “confusing” because he rarely engages in a linear narrative. The viewer has to think for himself and make often uncomfortable decisions about morality. Plus Godard is the godfather of the French New Wave, and therefore anti-American, anti-conservative, anti-Xstianity, etc.
The funny thing is, the French New Wave has been the model for pretty much all of the great American pictures since the 60s. Hello, Mean Streets Pulp Fiction, Fargo? Wingers simply hate material that doesn’t reaffirm their conventions and prejudices. Good movies tend to kind spit in the eye of such simplicity.
I suspect that some people, especially wingers, find Godard “confusing” because he rarely engages in a linear narrative.
Yeah, but he’s like totally easy to translate into French, so that has to count for something.
…or what McCain says can be translated into Esperanto?
Actually, Blue Buddha, I think that all of McCain’s statements are originally in Esperanto (aka the Velveeta of languages) before being translated into English.
I believe this only strengthens my point, bz bzzz bzz bz.
I suspect that some people, especially wingers, find Godard “confusing” because he rarely engages in a linear narrative.
You give them way too much credit. I suspect that most wingnuts have never seen a single frame of a Godard movie. The name “Godard” sounds kind of intellectual and European, so it’s a perfect thing for a wingnut to belittle. Those salt of the earth types, with their Larry the Cable Guy and their Christian Rock and their “Left Behind” books, they know what’s REAL entertainment for REAL people.
I’m pretty sure that “goat-blowing assclown” doesn’t really translate into French, either, but that in no way lessens its rhetorical value in describing Ferguson.
Au contraire.
I’m afraid my French is not good enough to try a more literal translation. My Spanish is much better but I still can’t think of how to combine chupacabra , culo and payaso into one nice, tidy insult. It may not be possible with words but maybe one of you Photoshop whizzes could whip something up to give us a visual translation.
Ok, Lawnguylander, that cracked my shit right up.
Reminds me of the time I wrote to Marty Peretz and told him that I was pretty sure that the literal translation from the original French to English of “de haut en bas” (a term he used to, if I’m remembering correctly, portray John Kerry as an elitist) was “I’m so smug that I’m in love with the smell of my own farts.”
Surprisingly, he never wrote me back, so I must have gotten the translation correct.
“See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
Could someone tell me how that translates into French?
Simple; it’s a one-word translationm: “Merde”
“My hunch is that the sentence is one of those things that no one will admit to being confused by,”
How about this: “we are the people who are here to finally change things, which is what the world has been waiting for.”
>>Gary Ruppert said,
>>March 17, 2008 at 16:24
>>All you Liberals were predicting a depresssion today. The Dow is >>moving up, so is the Nasdaq.
>>It’s only the efforts of foreign investors to crash our economy that >>concern some people.
>>Bonddad loses yet again.
Please – tell me how 100+ points below opening can be considered “moving up”.
My brother was kind of mad that I liked “Contempt” because I have never been married and, thus, couldn’t really have understood it.
My take on this is that I saw quite enough of my parents’ marriages that I simultaneously have been very careful about getting entangled in the institution and also had enough cognition going on to enjoy “Contempt.”
Plus, “Contempt” had Brigitte Bardot in it.
(“Contempt” is Godard, isn’t it? Should I have looked that up before commenting?)
And another thing:
The same people slamming liberals for pretending to understand Godard (which is such a universal characteristic of liberals that I can’t think of a single instance ever discussing Godard with a liberal except when my brother and I saw “Contempt”) are the same people who think Thomas Sowell is an intellectual and that “Liberal Fascism” is a genuine scholarly work.
Can we pretend to understand Godard at the post-Apocalypse party? Apparently it’s some liberal pasttime that those snooty, elitist liberals never invited me to.
Liberals. Hmf.
“What, after all, does “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” mean, precisely?”
it means instead of waiting around for some savior, or messiah to come down from the sky to save us all from the bush disaster, you (meaning us) have to step up and save the day.
not really that hard.
Andrew Ferguson is the empty-headed argument he’s been waiting for. The whole article avoids the basic underlying fact that the line Obama uses and the positive reaction it gets are based on a very real, widespread desire for change. Accept for just a second the premise of what is now getting to be a very worn out Republican meme, that Obama speaks only in generalities and that his followers merely read into it what they want to believe. Isn’t the issue that such a large number of voters want fundamental change from the whole mindset of governance in the past decade? He attacks the language Obama uses because he fails to name the politicians and lobbyists. And then, of all the arguments, says that since no politician campaigns as being pro-lobbyist, there really aren’t any pro-lobbyist politicians. This is just such a sad, sad world view. Ferguson really believes there is no such thing as intellect, there are no hops or aspirations that government could be improved. We’re all just a buncha slubs who have to make the best of the government we’re handed and if you think any better, it’s just some nonsense dreamed up by a bunch of black lesbian writers. Ferguson needs desperately for the argument to be about semantics. Once you have to start arguing about what drives Obama’s follwers, then he’d just be making an argument in favor of the status quo.
really? Famously obscure?
I don’t think Ferguson would do very well in an “argument” about semantics. Maybe in a column where no one is directly able to challenge his tedious nonsense. But not in a face-to-face discussion with, say, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal or Howard Zinn.
The special of the day would be Ferguson’s lunch.
Un maudite sac de merde!!
There, translate that bitch!!!
Hopi prophecies are famously obscure.
I Hopi don’t ever sound as dumb as Andrew Ferguson.
See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again
And over and over and over and over… how funny a phrase sounds when you repeat it to yourself, or when you peer too closely at the forms of the words and the meaning becomes an out-of-focus blur. So some French guy says a translation of a phrase doesn’t sound right to him, maybe that impugns the translation rather than a phrase in circulation for years that no one seems have misunderstood until it was politically expedient for them to do so.
Damn. That was actually published?
I thought they had higher standards. Ya know, like you need to advocate bombing people of a dusky hue, or something. Isn’t Kristol on the job, ensuring the proper amount of imperialism, or has his cushy NYT gig (for which he’s paid more than the average columnist) diluted his ability to craft inanity into mendacity?
That motherfucker had the nerve to name Coltrane? Really? I wonder if Coltrane ever played in French.
Well, yeah, but since when has a Republican strategy ever been about winning an argument. It’s always about monopolizing the argument so that it’s about silly crap.
I thought Hopi saying were obscenely demur. Or maybe they were ridiculously wise.
You also had Jack Palance screaming at Fritz Lang, which was fun. Godard’s movies are not really meant to be easily digested or enjoyed, or to serve as examples of any kind of perfection, and you’d have to be pretty much the world’s biggest snob to fault someone for not digging them.
Coltrane’s music, however, is as great as anything committed to durable media, and is not really subject to people’s casual opinions. I mean, go ahead and voice your criticism of the Sistine Chapel or Petroushka or whatever, but without some expertise you’re probably going to sound like an asshole.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for” comes from a poem by South African writer June Jordan. It’s not a Hopi proverb. Just sayin’.
This dumbass’s concept of “challenging” impossible-to-understand culture is Godard and Coltrane. What a moron.
What, after all, does “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” mean, precisely? My hunch is that it’s clear to everyone who has endured GW…like me for example.
If Mr. I Haz Confusion can make sense out of the garbled ramblings of George Bush, surely he can figure out what Mr. Obama means. Or maybe not.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for” comes from a poem by South African writer June Jordan. It’s not a Hopi proverb. Just sayin’.
That cannot possibly be true, for Mary Grabar was telling us a few threads ago that Obama’s rhetoric contained no real poetry and was nothing but empty effusions.
Hopi prophecies are famously obscure.
This is Ferguson proving that he too is a Man of the People, who watched Koyaanisqatsi with the rest of us.
WADR, Brandi, I don’t think of “Tony Blair said he didn’t hear it” isn’t quite the same as George W. Bush didn’t say it.
It wouldn’t be the first time Blair was less than forthcoming about Bush’s activities.
Just sayin’. Oh, and also this:
Oh, small thing — June Jordan did write for South African women but was herself born in New York (Harlem), another profound addition to American culture by someone of both African American and immigrant (Jamaican) roots.
If Ferguson is confused by “Breathless,” then he really is a loser and a moron.
I’m kinda hoping that “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” will be followed by “We have met the enemy and he is you.”
Perhaps Ferguson will not understand that “he” is part of the “you.” However, I have a few ideas on how to get the message across.
June Jordan isn’t South African, but “We are the ones we have been waiting for” is the last line of her “Poem for South African Women.”
http://junejordan.com/byjune.html
Alice Walker borrowed the line (crediting Jordan) for the title of one of her books of essays:
http://www.amazon.com/Are-Ones-Have-Been-Waiting/dp/1595581375/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205806624&sr=8-3
There may be a similar Hopi saying for all I know. In fact, I think the reason the line has become so ubiquitous is that it it touches on a truth that’s easily understood. Unless you’re a total moron and/or Andrew Ferguson.
How do you say asshat in French?
Andy, as anyone who has ever seen his schtick on C-SPAN knows, is sort of a poor man’s P.J. O’Rourke.
Heh. I get the reference, Mr. W. I remember your piece about jazz in Spy.
How do you say asshat in French?
Besides “Le Pen”?
cul-chapeau 😀
“no one will admit to being confused by, like the movies of Godard or the tenor-sax solos of John Coltrane, lest your peers think you’re a loser or a moron.”
Well, there are two possible reasons. Either you’re just ignorant – in which case I’m perfectly willing to sit down and explain Godard and/or Coltrane to you – or really are a moron and completely uneducatable. Perhaps the latter in this case?
I wonder why neither Mr. Fergie nor the bloggers he quotes have noted that “le sentence de la Barack Obama” is grammatically incorrect, and painfully so.
First of all, “Barack Obama”, being a person and all, the definite article “la” is not used. Second, even if it were grammatically correct to use a definite article, I am pretty sure that in the case of Obama it would be “le” (masculine), not “la” (feminine).
Well, unless he is perhaps trying to give us a subtle message about Obama too effeminate for his taste.