Here's the Cruz ad:
Here's the old Reagan ad — one of my all-time favorite ads, mostly because "if there is a bear" makes me laugh:
Reagan's ad is pretty subtle compared to Cruz's, but Cruz's ad is not without humor. The Texan boots at the end are a nice touch. Cruz is represented by booted feet.
What other candidate would we identify through a closeup of some subsection of the whole person other than the face (or hair)? Does anyone else have a signature item of clothing? Maybe Walker could be recognized by a motorcycle jacket. I'd recognize the ever-so-slightly flashy pinstripes of Ben Carson's suits after last night's debate. But that's just me.
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Indiana Jones says that large scorpions like that one are relatively innocuous. It's the small ones you have to watch out for.
What other candidate would we identify through a closeup of some subsection of the whole person other than the face.
Carly's boobs, which are noticeably smaller that Christie's.
We would recognize Hillary by her pantsuit.
Ripping off Hal Riney has become a national past time.
I would argue Reagan's ad was less subtle since the Bear was a common stand-in for the Soviets.
I don't think of Terrorists? Illegal Aliens? as scorpions.
Really sharp ostrich skin boots, too.
Forgot drug cartels can be scorpions in the desert too, I guess.
Insect politics is not an appropriate classification, and there is no arthropod politics tag. Pity.
Wonder if they thought of squashing that bug with the Texas ass-kickers to end the video.
The scorpion does sort of resemble a smiling Joe Biden sneaking up on Mrs. Clinton with a poison stinger.
Does Cruz peddle anything other than fear?
Reagan did. I don't hear a lot about what is good about America from Cruz, just about things t¥ be scared of or what he thinks is wrong with America.
Is the scorpion an allegory for racial Islam??
It's a bit of a reach, but I can't understand any other conclusion.
Wasn't Carson's suit awesome?
Reagan's ad ending with "if there is a bear?" was lame then and extra lame now. Unless the voiceover guy thought he was at a poetry slam and was waiting for snaps. In that case: nailed it!
But at least Reagan's "Bear" ad engaged ideas on some level. Nobody not already on board with Cruz will be moved a scintilla by his ad. Rather than intrigued, people on the fence will likely be turned off by the cartoonish nature of the Cruz ad.
Mark Reagan was accused of being a fearmonger early and often by the Dems and the Left (but I repeat myself), who were perfectly sure he intended to start WWIII. That was why Ted Kennedy made his heroic and principled offer to sell out to the Soviets.
The scorpion symbolizes treachery in particular. Thus the joke about the frog, the scorpion, and the river: "It's my nature."
In this commercial, the scorpion is a stand-in for a list of enemies, Iran first and most urgent among them at the moment: This is about the pending nuclear deal, but not solely about that. The world is full of scorpions.
The bear is larger than the man at the end of the Reagan commercial, although the man's posture is determined.
The booted man, by contrast, is barely, for the moment, restraining himself from squashing the scorpion. I'd say that, actually, is the biggest distinction between the two commercials; and while the Reagan commercial genuinely was intended to play upon fear of the Soviets, the message of the Cruz commercial is ultimately less grim, more confident, even — because of the cowboy boots — playful.
I like it.
@ harrogate (9/17/15, 4:13 PM): I'm not sure why you think the Reagan ad's "if there is a bear" was "lame" then or now.
Then, the United States and its western allies were facing the determined pushback from the opponents of the new Reagan-Thatcher determination to stand up to the Soviets politically and, if necessarily, militarily. The Left, both here and in Western Europe ("our" side of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain), really were arguing, as intently if ridiculously as ever, that the Soviets were peace-loving and misunderstood people who posed no threat to anyone. The Left aggressively accused Reagan in particular of "crying wolf" to justify the conventional and nuclear military build-up (including intermediate range ballistic missiles for western Europe) and "Star Wars"-type research programs he was championing.
Pretty much everyone in the world who still believed Alger Hiss had been a swell fellow and fine American also believed there was no bear. They'd talk your ear off on the subject.
I wonder how the Flannel Moth caterpillar would fare against that there scorpion?
"That was why Ted Kennedy made his heroic and principled offer to sell out to the Soviets."
Yes, being a leftist means never having to say your sorry. Teddy Kennedy literally got with murder. But the liberals will elect you over and over and protect your name in history if you toe the party line.
Why do modern cons need so much stronger fear mongering than they did in the Ronold days?
Is it that we're in much more danger than we were from the Soviets? So, the fussing is appropriate.
Or, are we in less danger, so more huffing and puffing is needed to fill amp up the perception of danger?
But it's boots and khakis! Really?! Lol
Ahh, the famous "Bear" ad by Reagan - loved it then, still like it now. It helped Ronnie win 49 states in ''84.
Pre-Internet, pre-cell phone era. That ad was a very big deal.
I loved one quip by Reagan in this interview: "The United States is the only country where it's harder to figure out your income tax than it is to earn the income."
That "if there is a bear" line is what distinguished Reagan from Goldwater.
"That "if there is a bear" line is what distinguished Reagan from Goldwater."
Every single line distinguishes Reagan from the much higher level of fear mongering that is the current-con baseline.
Richard, this was a 1984 campaign ad, same one as Morning in America and a shining city on the hill during the nomination acceptance speech that has some great positive sections.
Tom said...But it's boots and khakis! Really?! Lol
I'm going to assume you're not from Texas.
Cruz is CLEARLY not an eligible natural born Citizen (nBC), since he was born in Canada, and also because he was born to a Cuban citizen father. Even the state dept has doubts as to whether he is eligible:
UNCLASSIFIED (U)
U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual Volume 7
Consular Affairs
"7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency
(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)
a. It has never been determined definitively by a court whether a person who acquired U.S. citizenship by birth abroad to U.S. citizens is a natural-born citizen within the meaning of Article II of the Constitution and, therefore, eligible for the Presidency".
They also say that eligibility for the Presidency is determined judicially, and not by Congress. It is time to make that determination, as the presence of Cruz and 2 other ineligible candidates, Rubio and Jindal (NO POTUS was ever born of 2 non US Citizen parents), will dilute and debase the votes of all primary voters in every state.
The requirement that the candidate be ELIGIBLE ("able to be considered"-- Black's Law) is directed to the states who pick the electors. The states (most) have given that determination to the people, who vote for the electors.
Even if one considers those naturalized by 8 US Code 1401 (Cruz, Rubio, and Jindal) as "statutory" nBCs, they still may not be for "constitutional purposes" (the only "constitutional purpose" of the nBC requirement is eligibility for the Presidency), according to the State Dept. (executive):
"7 FAM 1131.6-2 Eligibility for Presidency
(TL:CON-68; 04-01-1998)
d. This statute is no longer operative, however, and its formula is not included in modern nationality statutes. In any event, the fact that someone is a natural born citizen pursuant to a statute does not necessarily imply that he or she is such a citizen for Constitutional purposes".
This determination must be judicially made before the primaries.
Sorry. Largely agree with Cruz but that add stunk. The problem is we aren't stepping on the scorpion. We are letting it slink away. We are letting it prey on the weak. We are holding our own side back with awful ROE's and people on the left who celebrate our deaths and losses.
We need to start calling out the liars and genocide peddlers as the cowards they are. This add was oblique and weak.
So ISIS/ISIL is the scorpion right?
Achilles, while I support impart your concerns about roa exposing our men to danger INXS of what might be avoided with superior and more independent fire power, do you discard the possibility that less friendly fire / collateral damage from coalition forces to friendly or neutral Afghan civilians is a good idea in the long run, keeping these natives on side? Where do you think you and I'm not mocking you, I mean should we just shoot anybody with a camera and to run riot out there? Would that work better in your opinion? I'm being sincere and inputting the question this baldly I'm expressing the difficulties. Honestly, if the worst thing for us is a camera. The visual style of expression is just the enemy of civilization, maybe the Jews in the Muslims had the right idea by forbidding images. Sorry about any typos, my phone is misbehaving.
Althouse, other than becoming my bottom b****, or saying how you really feel about things from time to time, the thing I'd like from you most on earth is to engage with people who appear to be making serious legal arguments as is Mick. Isn't he engaging you head-on? His passion is obviously overwhelming but you can pretend to care about that but you don't as we all know. Show us how it's done, refute him. What are you afraid of? Right? You're a law professor. You should be able to run rings around him. I suppose it's a clever tactic to attack the weakest arguments instead of the strongest, but I don't think that's how you learn the most in real life.
"Why do modern cons need so much stronger fear mongering than they did in the Ronold [sic] days?"
They don't, and the ads themselves are proof of it. The Bear is playing stronger on our fears. The Bear asks us "isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear ...?" meaning that we imminently need to arm ourselves and remain armed to ward off a mauling. And we can't be "stronger" than the bear, the best we can hope for is to match it. The bear is a sort of shadowy monster slipping in and out of sight, sometimes vicious and sometimes tame. It scares you with its unpredictability, while leaving implicit the terrifying reality that even if we arm ourselves it might not be enough.
All Scorpion asks us to do is "recognize the scorpion for what it is," because once recognized there is no true threat. After all, it's just a tiny thing and we've got flamboyant cowboy boots that can crush it, if we care to dirty them, and are doubtless thick enough to prevent a sting from harming us anyway. All we have to do is recognize the scorpion - keep an eye on it - to avoid unintentionally exposing ourselves to its sting.
I love Scorpion's message that danger is out there, but it's no match for us if we merely pay attention to it. I always laughed at The Bear, and then felt a little twang of unease for laughing. It's like laughing at the bad costume in Alien. It's not going to save your life, and that monster means business.
I'm comfortable living in a reality of acceptable risks you can control. I'm not comfortable with a reality where even my best efforts might be in vain. Maybe that's part of why I laugh at The Bear.
"I approve this message"
Woops, I missed it, what was the message?
Nichevo said...
"Achilles, while I support impart your concerns about roa exposing our men to danger INXS of what might be avoided with superior and more independent fire power, do you discard the possibility that less friendly fire / collateral damage from coalition forces to friendly or neutral Afghan civilians is a good idea in the long run, keeping these natives on side?"
The biggest thing is that when we catch the bad guys we need to kill them. We would catch bad guys and would release them. My last deployment we caught the same guy 3 times at places that were deemed targets. He was released within a week each time. The locals hated the Taliban as much as we did. When we weren't around the Taliban were bastards to them. The women were never freer.
Towards the end in Iraq the people were beginning to see what it is like to have true liberty. People take that for granted in the US. The ability to walk to the grocery store and not get shot or gang raped. The ability to vote. Iraq was safer than neighborhoods in Chicago. They appreciated that. A lot. Some of them.
I was in Ranger Battalion and we mostly went out at night and only saw the shitheads. There were a lot of people that needed to die. In the end it was about letting us do our job. But that required a leader that believed in what we were doing. Obama and the left want the world to be like North Korea. Let us fight and die so the world can be South Korea. That is why we signed up. If you could ship Obama and Hillary to the next place we go to war with you would have a huge rush to re-enlistment also.
"I mean should we just shoot anybody with a camera and to run riot out there? Would that work better in your opinion?"
If you mean the reporters from our own country for the most part they were part of the problem. They did not share our desire to see the people of Iraq be free. They were there for blood and pictures of it. Ours was better but they liked "civilian" casualties too.
I'm not that worried about whether Cruz meets the criteria, as for once the "interpretation" of the Constitution that would allow him to run isn't nearly as ridiculous as the ones we get shoveled at us daily these days. If that interpretation were the most off-the-rails we ever go, I'd be quite happy.
What I *am* interested in is that, in the last Kim Davis thread, Althouse basically said that Obama has never defied a court order. In fact, the way she did it was, she asked for evidence, and then flatly asserted in her next paragraph before giving anyone a chance to offer it that there was no such evidence.
Scattered among the next few dozens posts were several links to news articles showing several judges quite adamant that Obama and his DOJ had quite blatantly and shamelessly defied their orders.
Althouse never responded, though to be fair the thread had dropped down the front page some at that point, so maybe she never checked it again. Why should she? She outright stated that she was sure no one could possibly rebut her. I really wish she would answer the substantive responses, given her flat out, snarky, sneering assertion that there was no such evidence. Given that at least half her commenters are constantly pointing out Obama's lawlessness, if she really believes he never did any such thing, she must have nothing but mind blowing contempt for almost all of us. After all, she asked for evidence and didn't even bother to wait to see if she got any before condescendingly claiming there couldn't possibly be any. It would tell us all a lot to hear how she addresses all those links proving he has.
"What I *am* interested in is that, in the last Kim Davis thread"
Short version is that Althouse has a heavy bias in favor of gay marriage.
You are lucky she didn't frontpage you and slime you as a "bigot" for not clapping loud enough for gay marriage. Like she did to me last year.
"No scorpions were harmed in the making of this ad."
I guess stomping it would have grossed people out.
"They should then be put on a ship and inserted back into Syria and Iraq and allowed to take their country back."
Reagan thought fighting the Soviets with a volunteer Muslim army in Afghanistan was a good idea, but we ended up funding Bin Laden, building training camps that came back to haunt us, and laid the foundation for the Taliban.
Past history says your idea will leave us with militarized Islamic radicals, likely increasing our current problem. Those guys don't set down the gun and go home when we are done with them.
It is a Muslim scorpio.
Cruz's ad doesn't clearly identify what danger the scorpion represents--Terrorists? Illegal aliens? Iran? Hillary? Donald Trump? An out-of-control domestic police force? The hollowing out of the American economy and the devastation of American jobs for their own gain by the parasitic 1% of the 1%? For that reason it is a bad advertisement.
On the other hand, perhaps they intended this ambiguity...it allows the viewers to fill in the blank with their own fevered imaginings, it plays on (and further feeds) the amorphous fears of many Americans, fears that have been carefully and willfully stoked over a decade and a half, all in purpose to furthering the geopolitical aims of the military-industrial-financial complex (and the profit-seeking and career advancement of those within it) , and, finally, it absolves itself of any responsibility to identify the supposed danger and the specific ways in which Cruz will supposedly deal with it.
It's just a "boogah! boogah!" ad directed at the marks.
Mark said incorrectly: "Reagan thought fighting the Soviets with a volunteer Muslim army in Afghanistan was a good idea"
That policy began in the Jimmy Carter administration. It was the brainchild of his national security adviser,Zbigniew Brzezinski. His Big Idea was to tie the Soviets down by embroiling them in trouble in the various "stans" on the periphery of the Soviet Union.
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/coldwar/interviews/episode-17/brzezinski2.html
I remember National Review in 1980 arguing that Carter's policy, while correct, was not enough, and we needed to really step up arming the Afghan rebels. Which Reagan ultimately did.
The job was assigned to a top-secret (at the time) international organization code-named the "Safari Club," which had already done other international covert ops for the U.S.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari_Club
I remember reading about all this in Jane's Information Group.
The U.S. supplied the Afghan rebels with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Israel (!!!) supplied them with other weaponry they had captured in the 1973 Egypt-Israel War.
And Algeria energized the Afghan rebels with religious-themed propaganda.
As Paul Harvey would say:
"And now you know...the REST of the story."
rs that have been carefully and willfully stoked over a decade and a half,
More of your dishonesty, Cook. Oh the decade and a half. Gee, who does that cover? So we need to turn back the clock to Bill Clinton, is it? Bush 41? Reagan? LBJ? Who?
If you were a man, you'd look clear through the problem and understand that our liberties have been chipped away for a long time. Far longer than the reign of people you don't like. This is possibly not to indict, say, an Abraham Lincoln for unbalancing the balance of powers between states and USG, but to note that such things happened and that they present problems. Or an FDR, with more justice for his many failures, offenses and all round third-rate intellect, for Korematsu, which, however inflected with race hate you may wish to think, was not in any way equal or equivalent to the rounding up of undesirables in Europe at that time.
But to say, My boogeyman did it and there is some Happy Time in the Golden Past or Radiant Future where the discontinuity occurs, is at least obliging one to name that time!
Go ahead, Robert, stake some ground.
I forget, you oppose all American military action except MAYBE WWII, right? How far back does that go? How you liked the States War? No goodski?
If I didn't speak correctly above 're Lincoln and federal supremacy z think of the tag that 'it stopped being, The US are, and became, The US is.
The "if there is a bear" is not lame. As Beldar said, it was designed specifically to poke those playing ignorant on the true identity of the Soviet Union at that time.
And Hal Riney was so much better at this than whomever is doing Cruz's work.
"If you were a man, you'd look clear through the problem and understand that our liberties have been chipped away for a long time. Far longer than the reign of people you don't like."
I'm referring specifically to the period following 9/11/01, (which was 14 years ago last week).This period is when the fear-mongering has been really ramped up, and when our country transitioned to a police state.
Don't stupidly assume I'm being partisan: I don't like anyone who's been President for decades, and I haven't voted for a major party candidate since the first Clinton election, when I only grudgingly voted for Clinton against Bush Sr. I didn't make that mistake again, and didn't vote for Clinton again. There's no chance in hell I'll vote for any of the major party candidates we'll have to "choose" from in the next farce that we call our national elections.
Whether the scorpion is a stand-in for Iran or the Sunni editions of radical Islam, or for drug cartels taking advantage of the porous border, the key bit is that it starts to back up when the boots crunch to a stop in front of it.
Hopefully Ted feels as strongly about governmental abuse of power (IRS, EPA, Wisconsin's GAB). I'd like to see a similarly pointed ad about the adults taking the bullies strongly in hand.
"Reagan thought fighting the Soviets with a volunteer Muslim army in Afghanistan was a good idea, but we ended up funding Bin Laden, building training camps that came back to haunt us, and laid the foundation for the Taliban."
And what did Jimmy Carter think?
"Reagan thought fighting the Soviets with a volunteer Muslim army in Afghanistan was a good idea, but we ended up funding Bin Laden, building training camps that came back to haunt us, and laid the foundation for the Taliban."
If you had a time machine, you could run for President in 1980!
Mark said...
"They should then be put on a ship and inserted back into Syria and Iraq and allowed to take their country back."
Reagan thought fighting the Soviets with a volunteer Muslim army in Afghanistan was a good idea, but we ended up funding Bin Laden, building training camps that came back to haunt us, and laid the foundation for the Taliban.
The Taliban were training fighters in the Philippines long before the United States began arming Afghan Muslim Volunteers.
"(NO POTUS was ever born of 2 non US Citizen parents)"
Mick must have slept though American History :-), because he left off the qualifying phrase "except for the first 9".
It wasn't until John Tyler in 1841 that we had a POTUS who was born after 1776. Follow that to its logical conclusion: since the US didn't exist at the previous president's births their parents had to be non-citizens.
Absolute statements are (almost) always wrong.
""Why do modern cons need so much stronger fear mongering than they did in the Ronold [sic] days?""
People who think that the entire mankind will die because we drive cars and use plastic bags (due to the so-called "climate change") should not talk about "fear mongering". Seriously....
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