Juan Cole: Rambo and the Mean Girl

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via CommonDreams:


Published on Friday, September 5, 2008 by Informed Comment
Rambo and the Mean Girl
by Juan Cole


The Republican Party convention in Minneapolis gave us two American film narratives in an attempt to shift the national political debate away from issues and accountability to personalities and fluffy ideals.

Former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan let the strategy slip in an unguarded open mike moment. Asked if Sarah Palin is the most qualified woman Republican the McCain camp could have found, Noonan exploded: "The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --"

McCain's convention speech positioned him as John Rambo. The popularity of the Rambo: First Blood 2, historian Melani McAlister argued in her Epic Encounters, derived from the way it allowed its hero, a betrayed veteran, to fight the Vietnam War all over again and to win this time. McAlister suggests that the popularity in the United States of Israeli macho operations such as Entebbe derived from this same Rambo complex, a desire to compensate for the humiliating defeat of the United States by the Vietnamese and their Chinese and Russian allies.

McCain dwelled at length on his years as a prisoner of the Vietnamese and even adverted briefly to having been broken by torture. The rage and abasement of that moment when he signed a confession of war crimes and denounced the United States. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/05-4