Snicket contributes to "90 Days, 90 Reasons"

[Antenora]

Found on Google News, after filtering out the ubiquitous Lauren Conrad talk: Snicket has contributed to a project called "90 Days, 90 Reasons," wherein authors give their reasons for supporting the re-election of Obama.

His own reason is actually a list of 13 reasons, though he didn't compose them himself:

REASON 12: During his second term we will not hear the following things from President Obama—although we may have heard them from his political opponents.

1. I don’t know where Osama bin Laden is. I just don’t spend that much time on it, to be honest with you.

2. I’m not concerned about the very poor.

3. I am only going to allow small bills—three pages. You’ll have time to read that one over the dinner table.

4. One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not OK.

5. Life begins with fertilization, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.

6. I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk.

7. Drill everywhere. There is no such thing as global warming.

8. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school.

9. What the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy.

10. It's three agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone: Commerce, Education and the—what's the third one there? Let's see.

11. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.

12. The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.

13. Corporations are people, my friend. Of course they are.

— Lemony Snicket
 
In collaboration with:

George W. Bush (1)
Mitt Romney (2,11,13)
Hermain Cain (3)
Rick Santorum (4,7)
Paul Ryan, co-sponsoring the Sanctity of Human Life bill (5)
Mike Huckabee (6)
Newt Gingrich (8)
Sarah Palin (9)
Rick Perry (10)
Rush Limbaugh (12)

[feryl]

Politics are so divisive.

[Dante]

In retrospect, it's surprising that the "drill everywhere" one isn't Sarah from Alaska's.

But on a more serious note, I'm not surprised to see this pop up; Handler raised funds for Obama, and after his popular "13 Observations" contributed in relation to Occupy, I imagine he may be taking more public steps into the political arena. More public than "Busheney!", at any rate.

[allegedly bryan]

He can have his own segment on Rachel Maddow's show called the big 13 or something.

[Christmas Chief]

I'm a little surprised he chose to collect quotations from others rather than produce his own, but the technique is effective, I think. I wonder if we'll be able to spot any political commentary in ATWQ - Ink Inc. is a corporation, certainly.

[Antenora]

Aug 25, 2012 18:08:36 GMT -5 Christmas Chief said:

I wonder if we'll be able to spot any political commentary in ATWQ - Ink Inc. is a corporation, certainly.

Given the setting, it seems inevitable that themes of economic depression, environmental destruction, and corporate greed (as a cause of the previous two) will be present, even if quite subtle. For that matter, Snicket explicitly compared Ink Inc.'s operations to oil drilling...

[csc]

Hah, gotta love him.

[Anka]

Is it really necessary to show the negative side of his opponents instead of Obama's own positive side?

[Dante]

I think that's more an issue to take up with the overall balance of 90D90R. If a lot of them are negative and refer to Obama's opponents, that would be a problem, but I do believe that it's important to have both - that you need your candidate's good side and his opponent's bad side to form a complete picture. Political strategy aside, I think the technique he chose works for Snicket, too.

[allegedly bryan]

They're not even necessarily the opponent's "bad" side. Some of them, if not all of them, are actually the real opinions of the opponents and what they believe in.

[Anka]

Aug 26, 2012 4:20:26 GMT -5 allegedly bryan said:

They're not even necessarily the opponent's "bad" side. Some of them, if not all of them, are actually the real opinions of the opponents and what they believe in.

Okay, you're right. There are even two or three I don't totally disagree.

[Dante]

That's a good point. People who didn't support Obama in the first place might well agree with the sentiments expressed in these quotations. Because they're all genuine public statements, they don't represent those candidates' "bad sides," merely what Obama supporters would probably consider to be their bad side. The term "bad side" would be better replaced here with just "side," I guess.

[Hermes]

I don't understand the Palin one at all. Or is that the point?

As for the Limbaugh one, am I right in thinking there's a racial subtext to it? Because at first sight it struck me as a remark about the pointlessness of professional sports, which didn't seem altogether unreasonable.

[Antenora]

Aug 26, 2012 11:05:12 GMT -5 Hermes said:

I don't understand the Palin one at all. Or is that the point?

As for the Limbaugh one, am I right in thinking there's a racial subtext to it?

Yes to both questions.

[Dante]

I should take this opportunity to point out that any elements of this discussion which tend more towards the political than the discussion of Snicket's words themselves should be taken to Disturbing Discussion, where there is a thread just for this year's U.S. presidential election. I recognise that it's a fine balance to be achieved when discussing Snicket's statements about politics, but if you're worried about crossing the line into too political a question - you probably are.