Whiskey Fire finds what may be the greatest Erick Erickson post ever. The title is “Is Glenn Beck TV’s Obi Wan Kenobi?”
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Whiskey Fire finds what may be the greatest Erick Erickson post ever. The title is “Is Glenn Beck TV’s Obi Wan Kenobi?”
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MikeJ
Jar Jar.
MikeJ
OT, but Rahm has a better grasp of reality than he has lead us to believe:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/bipartisanship/rahm-emanuel-okay-bipartisanship-is-dead/
BruceK
Courtesy of Bill in Portland Maine, the One Word Answer Man answers:
No.
Longer answer: Comparing him to Jar-Jar is an insult to Mr. Binks. Beck’s more like that cackling, yapping, little *thing* in Jabba’s palace.
With delusions that he might someday be as cool as HK-47.
asiangrrlMN
Really? Erick the son of Erick, this is the best you can do? You bore me, Sir!
robertdsc
I’m an Anakin guy but mentioning Kenobi in this manner is offensive.
vacuumslayer
@BruceK: He’s probably more like something Jar-Jar pooped.
Michael
Does anybody have a picture of Erickson? In my mind, he’s chubby, stubbly and has an AWESOME model of the Millennium Falcon hung over his bed, where he reads his porn stash to the light of a Stormtrooper lamp……
Snarki, child of Loki
Oggie ben-Doggie
AkaDad
The stupid is strong in this one.
vacuumslayer
@Michael: I think it’s a rule that all conservative pundits must be doughy, fat-faced and pear-shaped. So just start there and let your imagination run wild. Just don’t picture Glenn Beck and Ross Douhthat making sweet sweet love.
Morbo
Here’s a Star Wars related blog post title for you Erick: “Is Erick Erickson the internet’s Porkins?”
Keith G
So, would that make Fox News the Force, or the Farce?
wasabi gasp
Use the Farce, Puke! Use the Farce!
Michael
Holeeeeeee shit.
We were so right.
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/imager/bright_lights_in_the_blogosphere/b/original/249888/87d3/cover1-1_04.jpg
http://static.crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2008/10/erickerickson1_83fc0.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3174/2683206170_25e3622ecc.jpg
asiangrrlMN
@Michael: Google gives me this:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/Erickson.jpg
@vacuumslayer: Fuck you very much for that image.
Oh, and I am not a Star Wars fan, so I don’t particularly care to whom Erick the son of Erick compares Kenobi (except that Ewan McGregor is teh hawtness and must not be sullied in such a manner).
Ducks and flees the room.
amorphous
Everyone here seems to be forgetting how the Star Wars Trilogy was one of the most bestest conservative movies ever.
amorphous
@vacuumslayer: Who’s the top?
vacuumslayer
@amorphous: Oh, Erick, without a doubt.
JGabriel
Erick Erickson increasingly reminds me of a character who also had evil voices in his head, claiming that being struck down had made them stronger like Obi-Wan Kenobi: Andrew from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except that Erick stays evil.
.
asiangrrlMN
@amorphous: Neither. That would be the Chunky Reese Witherspoon standing over the both of them with a whip. I just hope she has the foresight to ball-gag both of them.
Aaaaargh! My mind cannot handle the image!
linda
just because it’s a delicious way to start the day — barney frank prevails with humor:
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2009/08/18/barney-frank-is-a-god/
‘like talking to a dining room table…’ has to be one of the best putdowns by a congressman evah… lol
Comrade javafascist
Erick, son of Erick, Erickson bears a striking resemblance to the star wars kid of internet traditions. Coincidence?
He compared Palin to Obi Wan as well.
Also.
steve s
Andrew is approximately one hundred billion times more lovable than Erick.
MikeJ
If Erick was capable of building a buffybot his fapping wouldn’t pause for enough time to write a blog post. Which is why it sucks when your foes are evil *and* stupid.
Napoleon
@asiangrrlMN:
Now I am going to have that image of Reese in my mind the rest of the day.
wasabi gasp
Russia from my house, I see.
The Moar You Know
I recall less tears and snot, but I’m starting to get up there in years, and could well have missed Obi-Wan’s copious weeping and habit of going to pieces faster than a hand grenade.
gnomedad
@amorphous:
If you add the unintelligible moral logic of the prequels, you’d have a good case.
steve s
@linda:
That’s a great video. But I’m suspicious. How many cute brunettes in their 20’s are as jaw-droppingly stupid as Erick Erickson? I wonder if she was a plant.
asiangrrlMN
@Napoleon: You’re welcome.
steve s
All those pics of Erick, it’s just a matter of time before someone photoshops the Red State Trike Force…
jenniebee
@linda: saw that, loved it. Truth to Crazy, Barney. Truth to Crazy.
Ash Can
I don’t even know WTF Erickson’s talking about by comparing Beck to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Leaving aside the fact that there’s no actual boycott going on (just confronting sponsors with transcripts and threatening further action, IIRC), how is losing sponsorship making Beck more powerful? It makes no fucking sense — although I’ve long since come to the realization that, for the right wing, not making any sense is a feature, not a bug.
Michael
http://static.crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2009/07/redstate-trike-force_7e70d.jpg
asiangrrlMN
@linda: Yes. We need more of this, especially in the faces of his Republican colleagues. I love the disdain in his voice as he dresses down that young woman. She had the look of, “Oh shit, what did I just do?” as he excoriated her. Very satisfying.
MattF
ITS A PLOT! It’s… them, doing…. bad things. Which is totally completely absolutely different from… us, doing… good things.
El Cid
Is he saying that Obi Wan-Kenobi is the Glenn Beck of the Star Wars trilogy?
‘Cause, that just seems weird.
Zifnab
If it was between Glenn Beck and Spongebob Squarepants, I can see how people considered it a toss-up.
The Grand Panjandrum
I think you mean “so far” because I have no doubt that CINC RSSF will outdo himself someday. He probably has a cape and a light sword at the ready for a special event where he can proclaim the awesomeness of all the awesome being brought forth by the awesomemest teabagger. (Whoever that might be next time.)
Brick Oven Bill
Glenn Beck rocks.
Rochester 912 Group.
609 members!
jnfr
That Barney Frank clip has already made my morning happy and bright, and I’m just on my first cup of coffee.
amorphous
@asiangrrlMN: It’s a… bit early, shall we say, for that.
Pardon me, I have to go vomit now.
John PM
I guess you could compare Beck to Obi Wan to the extent that Obi Wan failed to keep Anakin from turning to the dark side and also failed to keep the Republic from becoming an Empire. Of course, Obi Wan was actually fighting against those two things, while Sith Lord Beck would have actively been cheering them on. I think the only way the comparison would really work is if Beck went to live in the desert for 20 years.
P.S. I have now determined that comparing a live person to a fictional character is one of the dumbest rhetorical devices ever and should really eliminate the person making the comparison from ever being taken seriously again. I usedbto think to myself a lot that presidents should sound like Michael Douglas’ character from The American President, until I kept reminding myself that he is a fictional character. If I truly want to make a point to these Republican idiots, I will instead quote Lincoln, T. Roosevelt or Eisenhower, you know, real Republican men instead of the p_ssies they have produced for the last 35 years.
wasabi gasp
609
memberspocket rockets!Scott de B.
BOB:
Aren’t you aware those 912 groups are government plants to make it easier for Obama’s minions to round all of you up and put you in internment camps! Don’t fall for it!
EnderWiggin
@linda:
I saw that and rushed over here expecting a post adding some more snark to the already awesome snark. Paging DougJ …
gypsy howell
@Michael: The lard is strong in that one.
Notorious P.A.T.
“Who is the bigger fool: the fool or the fool who follows him?”
–Obi Wan Kenobi
I wonder if Obi Wan went around saying “this is horrible to say, and I wonder if I’m alone in this — you know it took me about a year to start hating the Death Star victims’ families?”
Chad N Freude
@steve s:
Oh, please! I suppose there’s nothing like a little right-wing-style paranoia to start the day.
Nothing personal here, I just think the idea that she was a plant is silly on its face. Putting aside the fact that she has the intellect of a houseplant.
asiangrrlMN
@amorphous: YOU ASKED! Can I help it if my mind has given over to the Dark Side?
linda
@EnderWiggin:
isn’t it just great… it seriously has made my day.
Brick Oven Bill
Do you realize how many cartons of cigarettes it takes to get 609 ACORN members to only go vote? These Glenn Beck folks just do it. They write articles about the Constitution all on their own. They are literate!
Smart people make better citizens.
amorphous
@John PM: I don’t know, I’d say that Secksy (Glenn not David) Becksy is a real life dead-ringer for Ellen Burstyn’s character in Requiem for a Dream.
Zifnab
@Brick Oven Bill:
You make this too easy.
Notorious P.A.T.
@Morbo:
Haha ) Good old Porkins. Did you know he was in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” too?
Morbo
@Brick Oven Bill: Yawn… Don’t you have a cross to burn somewhere?
JK
Glenn Beck is a malignant media carcinogen and Erik Erickson is several fries short of a happy meal. They both need to resume taking their anti-psychotic drugs.
Chad N Freude
@John PM:
Oh, I dunno. Isn’t Obama a lot like Superman? Maybe with a little Kryptonite in the area? Isn’t Rahm Emanuel a lot like Batman? Isn’t Hillary Clinton a lot like Wonder Woman? Isn’t Sarah Palin a lot like Wonder Woman? Also?
You make an excellent point. Although I still like comparing Dick Cheney to Darth Vader, although as far as I know DV never went on Fox to promote his memoir. And George Bush is a real Oliver Twit.
JGabriel
Petty Star Wars point: Did Obi-Wan really come back stronger after Vader struck him down?
All Kenobi ever did afterwards was say things like “Trust the force, Luke” or “C’mon Yoda, give Luke a chance” and appear all translucenty and ghosty and shit.
Sorry, but I fail to see the stronger in that. Presumably, Beck will be about as effective.
.
wasabi gasp
@Brick Oven Bill: LOL. They can rites wurds about topical solutions!
JGabriel
@Brick Oven Bill:
Bad articles, BOB, full of wrong.
.
amorphous
@asiangrrlMN: You took it to 11, though. Ball-gags! It wasn’t even 9:00 yet.
My virgin ears!
JGabriel
@steve s:
Presumably about one out of six, i.e., about the same ratio as any other subpopulation.
.
jenniebee
Found this through a link at Pandagon – Holy Shit Running down the list:
An Israeli speaks to reporters about Israel’s nationalized health care and how much he likes it, so…
A woman wearing an Israeli Defense Forces t-shirt yells “Heil Hitler” at him, so…
He tells her off for saying that to a Jew. She tells him that as a Jew he should be against Obama. He tells her that he had to go to an emergency room without insurance, and 2 hours in the emergency room cost him $8,000, to which she replies:
“waaaahhh!” Seeing this action going on…
He is surrounded by her friends who tell him that he is “done” and to “go away”.
The woman tells him that she got stuck for a $15,000 hospital bill, Obama hates Jews, and…
Whatever happens, her tax dollars are not going to be taken to pay for abortions, or, as she puts it, “somebody else’s Friday night on the town.”
Then she gets her own interview. Her husband is uninsured, she’s underinsured, and that’s just the way it is because there is no right to health care in this country.
These people are insane.
jenniebee
I’m in moderation, so just the links: woman yelling “Heil Hitler” at Israeli at a townhall meeting, and an interview with the woman afterward.
Unbelievable.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
Thanks for the link. I was particularly taken by the last couple of paragraphs:
Hasn’t something like this been tried in the past? Some European country?
Along this line, there is a <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons” classic science fiction story by C. M. Kornbluth called <a href=”http://www.wattpad.com/111513-The-Marching-Morons-C-M-Kornbluth” “The Marching Morons”. It depicts a society strangely like early 21st Century US, including — amazingly– TV game shows (no kidding). The problems are the result of the stupids outbreeding the smarts. Totally worth everybody’s time. (BO Bill — you can use it to defend the article’s thesis.)
Chad N Freude
The links didn’t come through.
An overview is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
The story is at:
http://www.wattpad.com/111513-The-Marching-Morons-C-M-Kornbluth
John, can we PLEASE have buttons?
Chad N Freude
Part of the blockquote got chopped. Also. Here’s the whole quote:
“Some clear policy implications follow. What we want are immigrants who are most likely to be cooperative, trustworthy, and concerned about the welfare of the community. No one has any simple, reliable way of ascertaining whether an individual possesses these qualities. But we do have a simple, reliable way of measuring another quality that is correlated with them—cognitive ability, as measured by an IQ test or an educational credential. The smarter our immigrants are, the more likely they are to trust and cooperate, and the less likely they are to subtract from our existing stock of social capital. Selecting immigrants for intelligence (or a proxy indicator like education) could lessen the negative impact of ethnic diversity on American society.
This proposal works especially well in the broader debate over immigration. Many economists have advocated that the United States de-emphasize family preferences in favor of skill-based selection, much as Canada and Australia have already done. Though few people ever describe “skill” selection as a search for people with high IQs, immigrants with advanced degrees and sought-after talents are usually quite intelligent.
Skill selection is a desirable way of addressing the problem of ethnic diversity because it is already a policy option on the table. More intelligent (or educated) immigrants would be more productive workers, and they would also have a much less objectionable social impact on the United States due to their enhanced ability to cooperate. Putnam’s concerns about deteriorating social capital form another argument for immigrant skill selection.”
Calouste
@BruceK:
HK-47?
I always thought that was the gift for the spoiled little right-wing girl who has everything.
Zifnab
@Chad N Freude:
We already do that. Immigrants with advanced degrees are given preferential treatment over those without. Immigrants with jobs waiting for them in the states (de facto “educated individuals” that can get a job at an international firm) are fast tracked through immigration protocols.
But the major push in immigration isn’t at the high education / income levels. A nuclear physicist working out of Argentina rarely has it so tough that he needs to relocate. A highly successful El Salvadorian businessman might be useful in the United States from an economic angle, but he’s got little motivation to leave. You’re basically saying, “We need to encourage successful people to come to the United States” but successful people typically don’t have a lot of reason to relocate. On account of them being so successful where they’re at.
People migrating to America in large numbers are the ambitious but uneducated – the day laborers and the fruit pickers and the blue collar workers that simply want to take advantaged of the larger US services industry and higher wages that the increased demand provides.
This isn’t a matter of cherry picking the best and brightest from foreign soil. This is about dealing with the flood of young and untalented who are coming into our country whether we like it or not.
Chad N Freude
@Zifnab:
Yes, but it seems to me that the article talks about innately inferior IQs, not about education.
asiangrrlMN
@amorphous: Ok, I take it back. She doesn’t have to ball-gag them. Feel better now?
Brick Oven Bill
Unless you believe that natural selection is a thing of the past and that the world that went from 1 to 7 billion humans in the last 100 years can make 49 billion humans this century, population management is something to keep an eye on.
This is why I am so surprised that the Obama Administration is assigning different values to different individuals in their health care plan.
I guess the Administration’s vision is to assign lower values to old people, because old people as a group didn’t vote for the Administration, and you can make the clear case that they have less value than a 20-year old. But the dollar value of a human being can also be closely correlated by IQ.
There is probably a much closer correlation between IQ and human worth than age and human worth. Glenn Beck, it should be noted, goes hyper whenever governments attempt to assign different citizens different dollar values. This is because he knows where it leads. He is a very moral man, but not as moral as he thinks.
A managed transition to eugenics is the best possible outcome for the human species. A good start would be for those on public assistance to have their reproductive rights limited.
Notorious P.A.T.
@JGabriel:
That is true. But maybe since Obi Wan became an indestructible ghost who could still teach Luke that was what he meant.
Ed Drone
What I never understood about the “Marching Morons” is that smart people would have found ways to deal with the cretins without the “ultimate solution” of putting them in rockets and ejecting them in space (a very expensive method, to my way of thinking).
No, a smart government could easily cut the moronic birth-rate with contraceptives in the water supply (those “in the know” would have a separate water supply, or an antidote pill available). And to reduce the number of living morons, there’s always nationalism and wars.
Oh, wait …. I think I’m going to stop drinking water!
Ed
handy
@Brick Oven Bill:
“Managed eugenics.” I love you, man. Keep it coming just like that.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
I hate to repeat myself, but
Ann B. Nonymous
Bricko, human biodiversity is not your friend. You’re swimming in the stupid end of the gene pool, and if you really believed what you preached, you’d use your Rocky Mountain oysters as a topping.
Incidentally, many eunuchs look like Glenn Beck. That puffy, weepy face.
Chad N Freude
@Zifnab:
Some of them also try to get their kids educated and out of fruit-picking and house cleaning and manual labor, and succeed.
Uncontrolled immigration is not good, but the solution is not draconian punishment or eugenics but rather creation of similar opportunities for life improvement in the places the immigrants come from.
Brick Oven Bill
People get all angry with Hitler, and say he was a bad guy. But if you assign a ‘bad’ factor to people based on the amount of human suffering that they will create, the worst people are the World Health Organization and UNICEF types.
Hitler was at least partly responsible for 80 or so million deaths. In contrast, these do-gooders who feed dumb people without insisting on population controls are responsible for generating an unsustainable human biomass, billions of whom will likely starve this century.
Yes, Hitler was a bad guy, and I denouce him. But compared with Mother Theresa, Hitler will have caused less human suffering in the final analysis, if you do not index suffering to IQ, which is a whole different discussion. Therefore, Hitler was more moral than Mother Theresa.
Overpopulation.
Bubblegum Tate
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Ha! Good one, although I’d change “Death Star” to “Alderaan.”
GregB
This is a slap in the face to supporters of Lord of the Rings.
-G
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
Well, you have done what few others have ever been able to do. You have left me speechless.
handy
@GregB:
Doood, Glenn Beck is Gandalf the White Wizard!
PaulW
Glenn Beck = Jar Jar in an Ewok outfit screaming “Puppy Power” ala Scrappy Doo. And wearing Cousin Oliver’s glasses.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
Wait! D’oh! You got me. That is truly awesome satire. BO Bill, meet Jonathan Swift.
Michael
Erickson is now eating his own. LMAO
The headline itself is worth a click.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/08/19/dear-senator-mike-enzi-and-heritage-foundation-shut-up/?preview=true
The article is a winner, too.
bago
bago
7
Donald G
@bago:
A carbonite explosive? !? Every STAR WARS geek worth his Kessel spice knows that carbonite was the substance Han Solo was encased in for transport to Jabba, and that it was a thermic detonator that Jabba’s cronies were afraid of when wielded by a disguised Leia in RotJ.
RedKitten
This thread is so full of win, I can’t bear it. I’m sitting here giggling like a nut.
Paul MacDonald
@amorphous:
No, actually Lucas’ inspiration for the trilogy was based around Nixon and Watergate. Parts II and III of the second trilogy drew from post 9-11 hysteria.
Where you get the conservative notion is beyond me. I always assumed people knew the underlying themes in the most popular film series of the past 30+ years.
Doctor Science
Has BOB really gone over the insanity horizon and now all we’re hearing is the Doppler-distorted scream as he accelerates away? Or is he ratcheting it up like a toddler when you’re just now paying attention to him?
Is this a bid for attention, or medication?
Dave X
Bill Murray’s rendition? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53DQgbj2mIc
Chad N Freude
@Doctor Science:
Clearly a bid for attention, which I am happy to give him because he is such a great straight man (in the vaudeville sense, not the sexual politics sense).
Bubblegum Tate
@Paul MacDonald:
amorphous was being sarcastic; only wingnuts think SW are “conservative” movies in much the same way they think Ghostbusters is totally a conservative movie becuase there’s that one joke where Bill Murray says the difference between academia and the real world is that they expect results in the real world.
Tsulagi
Commander EE is about two lightsabers short in a two-saber mental arsenal.
Additional comedy was on RedState about two weeks ago when the RSSF mobilized staging in Atlanta. They were to bond into a starbursting real force. They answered the call; their numbers swelled into the tens. Have a feeling some of the R-pols Erick conned into attending were thinking “WTF” seeing this group.
Best comedy was in the comments sections by troopers who posted links to their personal photo albums of the event. ComicCon geeks would point and laugh at these dweebs. One had a grinning Colbertesque photo of himself with his arm wrapped around a Cuban guy from FL running for the Senate. Could have been captioned “This is my Hispanic friend!”
Of Bugs and Books
@ #40 BOB:
Glenn Beck rocks?
This?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_wnz24JqFabc/SJTBcHsU28I/AAAAAAAAAgQ/EAP5IvV4z50/s400/petrock.jpg
Paul MacDonald
@Bubblegum Tate:
Phew, I was concerned for a second.
Warren Terra
@ JGabriel, #59
Yup, I had the same reaction. After all, while Alec Guinness delivered the line very impressively, and it was a good boast, in fact either Vader had a severely limited imagination or Old Ben was full of it?
I mean, post-death, all Kenobi managed was to encourage Luke to trust the force and to tell him to go visit Yoda; I don’t remember him even responding to anything Luke said, just delivering the messages – and neither of the messages even required any new information, just faith and knowledge Kenobi that had possessed for Luke’s whole life. He could just as usefully have left Luke a note, or gotten around to telling Luke before his death.
As you point out, Dead Ben also told Yoda to give Luke a chance – but, again, what were Yoda’s options; was he going to wait around for the next half-trained Jedi to come along instead of Luke? Especially as Yoda somehow managed to live for some incredibly long time and then conveniently expire of old age or disease just after teaching Luke?
More powerful than Darth could imagine, huh?
Johnny Pez
If it’s for Glenn Beck, shouldn’t it be called a “bawl gag”?
Johnny Pez
Btw, many Bothans died to bring you that joke.
Wile E. Quixote
Fuck, I need to get my ass into the gym, otherwise people are going to look at me and say “Look at that fat, dweeby looking fuck. He’s probably a goddamned conservative pundit. Asshole.”
Oh, and not only is Erick son of Erick another doughy, conservative sack of shit, but he’s a doughy conservative sack of shit who was never in the military. What are the two things you don’t find in foxholes? Atheists and prominent conservatives.
Wile E. Quixote
The thing is that when you look at the events that happened in the second (or first, depending upon how you count) trilogy all of the bad things that happened are the fault of one man, Obi Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan Kenobi fucked up, massively, and in doing so launched the career of Darth Vader and guaranteed the reign of the Emperor Palpatine. Don’t believe me, well let’s look at how things played out.
OK, end of the movie,Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker, or perhaps I should say Darth Vader the Jedi formerly known as Anakin Skywalker, has gone to the volcanic planet Mustafar to wipe out the rebels against the empire in order to provide Emperor Palpatine (né Senator Palpatine, aka “Darth Sidious”) with a spot of positively Cheneyesque plausible deniability. Padmé’s Amidala chases after him in another ship aboard which Obi-Wan Kenobi has stowed away.
Anyways they get to Mustafar, the volcanic planet, and Padmé pleads with Vader (né Anakin) to run away with her. Obi-Wan comes out of Padmé’s ship and Vader (né Anakin) gets pissed, thinks that Padmé is delaying him so that Obi-Wan can sneak up on him and uses the force to choke her into unconsciousness (Have you ever wished you could do that to the people who answer tech support phone calls? “I’ve told you twice, I have rebooted.” “Well sir try rebooting again.” “You have failed me for the last time.” “Choking sounds from other end of line, muffled sound of a body hitting the floor.”)
OK, Obi-Wan and Vader (né Anakin, oh fuck this, it’s annoying. I’m just going to keep calling him Anakin) start fighting. Much light saber action, Shzooom! Shzooom! Shzoooom! Mmmmmmgggggnnnng! Shzooom! Shzooom! Fwip! Faba dapa dap! (or whatever sound light sabers make). At one point Anakin accidentally whacks the conveniently accessible self-destruct switch for the facility with his light saber (You’d think that people would learn to stop having those installed, but no, they never do. Just like granite countertops conveniently accessible self-destruct switches look great but are hard to maintain.) and things start to fall apart around them on Mustafar (Which was some really impressive digital cinematography, especially the views of the sky.). Anakin and Obi-Wan continue to fight as the facility falls apart upon them and end up jumping on to separate floating mining platforms, and chase each other, still fighting, across the lava sea.
The light saber action continues. Shzooom! Shzooom! Fwip! Fzapa! Ploink! Finally Anakin jumps onto Obi-Wan’s platform and starts to really kick Obi-Wan’s ass. Obi-Wan finally breaks free by executing a huge backflip off of the platform and onto a rock at the shore of the lava sea (Obi-Wan’s incredible back-flip and of their ability to breathe in this environment is obviously the result of their strenuous Jedi training and mastery of the Force).
Anakin stops the platform and is about to jump off and resume kicking Obi-Wan’s ass when Obi-Wan warns him not to try it, telling him that he can’t make it because Obi-Wan has the high ground. But Anakin isn’t listening, and why should he? He’s been doing a right proper job of kicking Obi-Wan’s ass, which probably feels really good after the 40 million or so admonitions he’s received from Obi-Wan and the other Jedis to chill out, and face it, Obi-Wan is probably just saying this so that Anakin will stop kicking the shit out of him. So he jumps, and as he does so Obi-Wan swings his light saber and Zip, Whack! Shzooom, Zip, Shzooom! Zip! Shzooom! and cuts off Anakin’s left arm and both of his legs below the knee. Ouch! So now Anakin’s a quadruple amputee (having lost his right arm to Count
Dookie, er, I mean Dooku in Attack of the Clones) and maybe he should consider changing his name from Darth Vader to Darth Matt or Darth Bob.So, here’s this poor, sad, mad bastard who has just had his remaining three limbs amputated (I’ll tell you, having one cut off hurts more than I could ever describe. I can’t imagine three) lying at the edge of the lava sea and starting to burn and what does Obi-Wan do? He does the wrong thing. He does nothing.
Now, Obi-Wan could pick Anakin up, sling him over his shoulder, and, barring any mad behavior on Anakin’s part ala the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Oh! Had enough, eh? Come back and take what’s coming to you, you yellow bastards! Come back here and take what’s coming to you! I’ll bite your legs off!”), haul him away and stick him on a high shelf somewhere (or drop him in a swimming pool and let him bob around) until things are sorted out and then try to rehabilitate him? No. Obi-Wan chooses not to do this.
OK, fair enough, perhaps upon more considered judgment Anakin’s too dangerous to live. Perhaps he can’t be rehabilitated at this point, after all, he’s sold out to the Sith, slaughtered the Jedi younglings, tried to choke his pregnant wife to death and given Obi-Wan the ass kicking of a galaxy a long time ago and far, far away (I don’t mention the slaughter of the Tusken raiders because everyone hates the fucking Tusken raiders, they hate them almost as much as they hate the fucking Ewoks and the fucking Gungans. The only people who give a shit if you slaughter any of these annoying alien bastards are bleeding heart liberal fuckheads at the GCLU (Galactic Civil Liberties Union) and even for them it’s pretty much a pro forma objection).
Anakin is a dangerous, mad bastard, a rabid dog that needs to be put down. So does Obi-Wan take care of things, stab him through the heart with the light saber, or cut him in half lengthwise with it or perhaps ram the light saber through his head and leave it there until his head explodes (And you would be 100 percent correct, if, from reading the preceding sentence, you came away with the impression that I would love, love, absolutely love to have a light saber. Oh man, I so want a fucking light saber! A lot of people couldn’t be trusted with that kind of power, but I know that I could.) or simply pick him up and drop-kick his ass into the lava sea? No, Obi-Wan chooses not to do that either.
Now, either one of these choices would be consistent with the traditions of the Jedi. If Obi-Wan rescues Anakin and rehabilitates him then he’s acting in the highest traditions of the justice and mercy that the Jedi claim to serve. On the other hand if Obi-Wan kills Anakin, well, the Jedi are not averse to shedding blood, as the headless corpse of Jango Fett and several hundred legions of dead Imperial Storm-troopers will testify. By Obi-Wan’s moral code both of these choices are good, both of these choices are right.
Neither of those choices appeals to Obi-Wan though because Obi-Wan, although a Jedi, is enraged. He’s been betrayed by Anakin, whom he regarded as a brother, he’s seen what Anakin has done to the Younglings and to Padmé, everything he cares for is turning to shit around him and he’s barely survived the most viciously brutal and terrifying fight for his life he’s ever had. At this point it’s not about justice any more for Obi-Wan, no, at this point it’s about revenge. Obi-Wan wants Anakin to suffer, horribly, for what he did, before he dies, so Obi-Wan does nothing; he just walks away.
It gets worse. Consider this: although Anakin has gone over to the dark side, although he has been anointed by the emperor as Darth Vader, although he’s done bad things, he hasn’t done a lot of them yet. He has committed mass murder, killing the Jedi Younglings and the Tusken raiders, but he hasn’t aided in the destruction of any planets yet. So, if Obi-Wan did the right thing, either rehabilitating him or killing him, Darth Vader’s career, a career which caused the deaths of untold millions of victims all over the Empire, not just those who cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced with the Death Star destroyed Alderaan, would have been nipped in the bud.
This is not at all similar to the “would you kill Hitler in his cradle before he grew up and went on to his career of evil?” dilemma. This is more like, “would you kill Hitler in der Führerbunker in 1941 before the invasion of Russia but after the invasions of Denmark, Norway, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Czechoslovakia and North Africa the bombing campaign and U-Boat war against Great Britain and the massive deportations of Jews from Germany, Italy and the Axis occupied territories?”
The hypocrisy of the Jedi is breathtaking. The Jedi were always telling Anakin to control himself, to control his anger lest he fall prey to the temptations of the Dark Side. But when the shit comes down, when things get ugly and their backs are against the wall the Jedi are just as likely to give into their anger and to the Dark Side as any snarling member of the Sith. Mace Windu wants to execute Darth Sidious. Obi-Wan turns into a sadist who wants Anakin to suffer and die. Their actions are no different than Anakin’s in slaughtering the Tusken raiders. At the end of the trilogy Yoda is the only survivor of the Jedi who hasn’t given in to the Dark Side and Obi-Wan’s hypocrisy and failure have guaranteed that agents of the Dark Side, most notably Darth Vader, will claim even more victims.
freelancer
@Paul MacDonald:
Sadly, No.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051808/
When Lucas makes Political Allusions, they are ham-handed and groan-inducing. The original trilogy doesn’t have that.
Steeplejack
@Wile E. Quixote:
Dude. Awesome. You magnificent Cheeto-huffing bastard. I can’t believe no one has commented on your hilarious and mind-bending rant. Best thing I’ve read all day. And I’m serious. Know that you have been read and appreciated at least one place.
Luthe
@ Wile E. Quixote:
It is arguable that Obi-Wan chose to walk away out of anger. Based on his last words to Anakin (“You were my brother! I loved you!”), it is entirely possible he loved Anakin too much to kill him, but also thought Anakin was too far gone to be saved. So he left Anakin to what he thought was a certain death, because it was the easiest thing to do. Of course, he discounted the will of the Force, but unfortunately, that happened a lot in the prequels.
/uber-geek