Being an American, I like snappy slogans and faux-intellectual pretentiousness, especially when I get to practice it. This leads me to a maxim I wrote a while back, probably some time after 1999's The Phantom Menace.¹

I had learned that Natalie Portman was of Israeli origin (born 09 June 1981 in Jerusalem) and indeed had visited the place recently after one of those Palestinian not-so-smart bombs had detonated itself in a public place, with attendant civilian casualties. The mental machinery of wiseacrey shuddered to life, and thus uttereth the Pundit:

"Dude. Until the Palestinians can come up with something better [looking] than Natalie Portman, I'm backing the Israelis."

Toss all the arguments about the right to self-determination of peoples, the notion of popular sovereignty, participatory democracies, the theory of the nation-state, all the religious and cultural questions, et cetera. Given that some of the rhetoric in the Palestinian corner usually mentions exterminating all the good people of Israel, I couldn't in good conscience allow such a thing to happen to a gene pool that produced Natalie Portman. It couldn't happen! I therefore articulated the outsider's question of who to support very, very simple: What've you done for my viewing pleasure lately? I was fairly certain that this maxim would go unchallenged for quite a while.

Cometh The Politburo Diktat, a blog that's nastily funny in terms of satire. Basically, it apes the old Soviet style of reporting, grammar, spelling, and so forth. It also has the honor of being the first to challenge (albeit briefly) the Portman doctrine.

In a post entitled Exploiting Ajram, TPD gives us the story of one Nancy Ajram, a pop singer who's getting into trouble with Islamic authorities in Bahrain. Why's she in trouble? The usual: She's decent looking, and doesn't wear a burka. Anyways, I don't care what the Bahrainis do² in regards to this girl; their government likes us and that's what's important.

For a brief moment, this Miss Ajram made me think that the Portman Doctrine would be applied to a different effect, that I might have to await a new Israeli babe to re-examine my political sympathies. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, Miss Ajram is from Lebanon. Until they come up with an eye-catching babe, I'll have a hard time being lobbied for their cause.³

Yeah, yeah, this is a flip post. I don't know a thing about Nancy Ajram past 'she sings' so for all I know, she could be the moral equivalent of Vanessa Redgrave. It's a Saturday and I'm not particularly in the mood to write a sober piece.

1 I refuse as a matter of personal conscience to grant cinematic recognition to the dreadful pictures marketed under guise of 'prequels' to what right-thinking people will consider the best trilogy ever made. Take that, Messrs. Wachowski! (And, by extension, Peter Jackson.)

2 Or did; for all I know she went ahead with the performance. It is difficult to find news about the Middle East when one doesn't speak the languages of the Middle East.

3 Successful candidates will present a portfolio that overrides Miss Portman's record of playing a girl (albeit a really young one and therefore not entered in the 'babe' category) who watched Transformers and liked sniper rifles, along with playing the third-best royal-in-white (behind, in a messy tie, Cate Blanchett's Galadriel and Carrie Fisher's Leia Organa) and who at the same time was an excellent homage to Erin Gray's Colonel Wilma Deering.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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