The Obama opponent I fear most jumps in the race. Venus Williams’ hideous new outfit. And Jon Stewart, thoughtfully, appears on Fox News

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We’re only about 16 months away from the next presidential campaign, and up until now I’ve been pretty uninterested.
Seeing the complete lack of serious candidates on the Republican side (Santorum? Gingrich? Really?) had me feel pretty comfortable. Even if Sarah Palin jumped in, I wasn’t really worried. Mitt Romney is a phony, Tim Pawlenty keeps making one mistake after another, and I saw no one in the field who truly could look, act and talk presidentially. If Barack Obama was to lose, it’d be a self-inflicted wound that killed him, I thought.
Until Jon Huntsman got in the race, which he apparently will do today. Jon Huntsman scares me a little bit, I have to tell you.
He’s a former governor of Utah, so you know he’s conservative (Utah likes Democrats about as much as kids like lima beans). He’s not a nut-job, which immediately puts him in the upper-tier of candidates.
He’s smart, not nearly as conservative as some GOP primary voters will want him to be (he supports civil unions), but from what I’ve seen he’s a very smooth speaker who can get his point across without shouting or browbeating the audience.
Of course, the fact that he worked for the Obama administration as the Ambassador to China will hurt him in GOP circles. But as this NYT story points out, it also helps him in a lot of other ways.

I don’t know enough about Huntsman to be truly frightened of him. But he’s certainly the most electable Republican I’ve seen so far this cycle.
So yeah, I’m a little worried as a Democrat. 

**OK, I’m no fashion expert. It was until I was in my late 20s that I really learned what “matching” meant, and there are still some sweaters I was forced to throw away by women that I still will fight to the death for.

But even though I ain’t no Tim Gunn, certainly I can’t be the only one to wonder what the hell it was Venus Williams was wearing on Centre Court at Wimbledon Monday.
Seriously Venus, it looks like something a “Star Wars” character would wear on the spaceship. Or maybe it just looks like a frock of some kind. Either way, it’s really, really bad.
Isn’t there someone who could’ve told her that?

**Finally, I’m always fascinated with how Fox News treats people who call them out. Jon Stewart, of course, has been taking shots at the Roger Ailes propaganda machine (very warranted shots) for as long as he’s been hosting “The Daily Show.”

Sunday, Stewart went on Fox to have a sit-down with Chris Wallace, one of Fox’s more toned-down idealogues. It was really fascinating television; watch the whole thing if you have time.
The false equivalency of Wallace baffles me; watch how he continues to try to say Fox News is just like the NY Times and CBS, while Stewart keeps trying to show him that they’re not.
Really entertaining stuff. (For the full, unedited version of the interview, click here.)

That “inglorious basterd” Tarantino made a great flick

 

OK, first things first. The U.S. Open has started; I’m blogging it daily for my newspaper; here’s the link for my thoughts on Day 1: Pretty routine day, Venus Williams nearly went down, and Andre Agassi gave a great speech.

Also very psyched for the “Rescue Me” season finale Tuesday night; I have no idea what will happen except that I’m sure some characters will almost die, Tommy will survive, and there’ll be lots of sex and violence. How could anyone not love this show?

And could someone please explain to me what the hell is going on with the Kansas City Chiefs? New coach Todd Haley fires the offensive coordinator in the preseason.  He can’t be that stupid as to panic over a team’s preseason results, can he?

Well, it is the Chiefs. Boy it stinks to be a Kansas City sports fan these days.

And oh yeah, last month you may remember I was bellyaching that there were no creative basebell nicknames left. “The Splendid Splinter,” “Joltin’ Joe,” “The Human Rain Delay,” all those were fabulous.

Well, thanks to my sportswriting god Joe Posnanski, I have found a new great one. Royals soft-tossing minor leaguer pitcher Chris Hayes has acquired the nickname “Disco.”

Why? Because he throws in the 70s.

Perfect. I so hope he makes The Show.

OK, now on to the “Siskel and Ebert” portion of our blog; saw two really good movies over the weekend; will save the other one for tomorrow because quite frankly, I’m not sure you all have time to read 1,500 word blog posts.

Quentin Tarantino, to me, has been like that long-lost friend you see every once in a while, have an awesome time with, and then when they leave you’re like “Why don’t we spend more time together?” Only time goes by and you forget about the friend for a while.

When I actually take the time to watch a Tarantino movie, I’m wildly entertained. “True Romance?” Brilliant. “Pulp Fiction,” well, if you don’t think it was great, than we’re probably not going to get along. “Jackie Brown” was also solid.

But I don’t know why, but I tend to miss a lot of Tarantino’s movies. Still haven’t seen “Kill Bill” in either of his volumes, and I’ve missed some of Tarantino’s other flicks, too.

But I am extraordinarily pleased I wandered to the cinema (I always loved that word, “cinema,” sounds so old-fashioned) Saturday to see “Inglorious Basterds.”

You know how there are some movies where at the end you’re like “I spent 9 bucks for that?” Well, let me tell you, you get your money’s worth here. The story, which I’m sure you know by now, is about a group of ass-kicking Jews in World War II, led by, of course, Brad Pitt, who try to kill as many Nazis as they can.

(Let’s pause for a moment. You know, you just don’t get to write the phrase “ass-kicking Jews” very often. Reminds me of that great scene in “The West Wing” where after Toby and Sam are in a bar fight, Toby calls back to Washington and talks to Will Bailey, who already knows about the brawl.

“It’s big news in Washington?” Toby asks.

“Are you kidding?” Will replies. “A Jew won a bar fight. It’s big news everywhere.”

(God, I love Aaron Sorkin. But I digress.)

 Along the way in Tarantino’s film, we meet some superbly drawn characters; Tarantino is fabulous at giving his characters dimension. There’s Pitt, who I only love in his comedic performances, as the non-Jew leader looking to scalp Nazis. There’s a beautiful Jewish woman, Shoshanna,  who escaped and now plots revenge.

Every actor is fabulous in this movie, but the absolute standout is the German SS Colonel Landa, who mesmerizes you every time he’s on screen. If this guy (Christoph Waltz) doesn’t get an Oscar nomination out of this, I’ll be pissed.

Now of course the movie is totally fiction, and the ending is truly mind-bending in its improbability. But that’s the point of movies, isn’t it, to show us a world we can’t imagine?

Four stars for this movie from me. It’s not as good as “Pulp Fiction,” but to me this is Quentin’s second-best film.

Again, it’s a movie with Jews kicking ass for two hours. When do you ever get to see that?

Certainly not at my high school when I was growing up, that I can assure you.