President Queeg & The Brown Mutiny [Reader Post]

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The Caine Mutiny DVD collectors editionIf you want to see a truly great classic movie, allow me to recommend The Caine Mutiny released in 1954.  Why that one?  Well, I’m beginning to see some resemblances in the plot of that movie and the STRANGE things going on around the Obama administration since the Massachusetts Miracle election of Scott Brown.  Do you see the same things?

The short version of the plot is that a poorly-run ship gets a new captain who, it is hoped, will restore discipline and purpose to the crew.  On the surface he looks like the perfect person to lead, though he’s never had such a task before.  He’s seen hard duty and maybe he might be good in an essentially training job.  It soon becomes apparent to all, however, that this Captain Queeg is damaged goods, psychologically.  He seems to be on a megalomaniacal power trip and obsesses about trivial issues while being oblivious to true dangers.  Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia summary:

The next day, the Caine is assigned to tow a target for gunnery practice. Queeg berates both Keith and Keefer over a crewman’s appearance and, while distracted, cuts off the helmsman’s warning; as a result, the Caine continues in a circle and cuts the towline to the target. Queeg refuses to accept responsibility and tries to cover it up.

Other incidents serve to undermine Queeg’s authority. When the remains of a quart of strawberries is stolen from the officers’ mess, the captain goes to absurd lengths to hunt the culprit. More seriously, in combat, Queeg breaks off escorting a group of landing craft during an amphibious assault long before they reach the fiercely-defended shore, dropping a yellow marker in the water instead and leaving them unsupported. Afterwards, Queeg makes a speech to his officers, not explicitly apologizing for his behavior, but bending enough to ask for their support. His disgruntled subordinates do not respond.

Keefer begins trying to convince Maryk that he should relieve Queeg on the basis of mental illness. Matters come to a head during a violent typhoon. Maryk urgently recommends that they steer into the waves and take on ballast, but Queeg fears that the ballast will foul the fuel lines with salt water. Queeg’s decisions seem to Maryk to threaten the capsizing of the Caine. When Queeg appears to become paralyzed and unable to deal with the crisis, Maryk relieves him and takes over, with Keith’s support.

Part of the crew is court-martialed for their mutiny.  At first, Queeg presents himself as perfectly logical and a victim of jealousy and it seems to be working.  Queeg is going to be cleared and the crewmembers convicted.  Then, in a climactic scene, Queeg, played to the hilt by Humphrey Bogart, comes apart on the stand under the pressure of truth, his constant rolling of those metal balls in his right hand serving as the background for his mental collapse.

obama_contempt_0

Now, let’s see what happened to Obama last week.

He had been brought aboard the ship of the body politic to straighten things up.  He had never done anything like it before and there was some suspicion that he was ‘damaged goods’, having been stewed in a Marxist marinade and perhaps scarred by an unusual background.  But he actually seemed to LOOK like the perfect antidote for what ailed us, just as someone like Queeg might SEEM to be perfect as a trainer; he had seen active duty; so, though he had never actually had such duty as a training captain, he might do well.

But as soon as he became our ‘captain’, Obama began to betray annoying symptoms of clueless behavior.  He obsessed about the Olympics, global warming and the Nobel Prize, while our ship of state cut the towline of international respect.  He conveyed massive energy and resources towards a health care monstrosity no one wanted while the real crying need for jobs lay like a target cut off and adrift in the water.  When our Army cried for a quick decision in Afghanistan, he obfuscated and dithered.  While Fort Hood and the Underwear Bomber cried out for a strong response, Obama dropped the yellow marker of apology and unprecedented civilian treatment of terrorists, including trying KSM in New York City.

Far from being the transparent post-confrontational ‘trainer’ he had promised to be, he practiced a Queeg-like paranoid secrecy everywhere, in his many secret czars, the subsuming of the census, the Cambridge policeman acting stupidly, the total closed-door secrecy in the health care process, the silencing tactics with Fox, media and citizenry alike, and so much more.

Queeg had good attorneys to mask or spin the stories about him.  Obama had almost the entire media and elite to try to spin the behavior we began to see with our own eyes.  So, it looked like he might be able to get away with it.  Until…

Enormous political pressure came to bear on Obama with the unexpected win by Brown in Massachusetts in the wake of New Jersey and Virginia, and then, IT HAPPENED.  The veneer cracked.  Hordes of once true-blue liberal pundits, politicians and power brokers began to say out loud what those watching closely have known all along.  [For instance, Mort Zuckerman has repented with a vengeance]  People began running from the health care bill like the plague, pointing fingers, jumping off the ship. Voila.  The Emperor has no clothes.  Everyone is staring at Obama in the witness chair, tumbling those balls in his hand, totally obsessed with an ideological madness, unable to face the reality surrounding him.  He just can’t seem to deal with it, resorting to absurd comparisons that now fall completely flat with everyone.  We’ve all seen it together and called it what it is.  EVERYBODY KNOWS WHO HE IS NOW.

The one key, even crucial, difference is that Obama has not been relieved of command as Queeg so obviously needed to be, and was, at the end of  “The Caine Mutiny”.  Even though we have uncovered a similar paranoid obsession in Obama, he will most likely remain our ‘captain’ until 2012.  There is still plenty of damage he can do, so many more yellow markers to drop, so many fruitless strawberry hunts to waste our money upon.

What do we do?  Let’s all find something to do in making 2010 a sea-change election.  This is a matter of patriotism not partisanship.  “It is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”  Choose a local candidate who gets it and become involved in their campaign.  If you have a lot of money, it won’t do you any good if our country goes aground on some reef of socialism; give it where it will do some good.  Are you a good writer?  Write editorials, letters to the editors, on blogs, anywhere you can.

We’ve already managed to do so much up to now.  Why stop?  Let’s effectively take this captain’s hands off the wheel and limit the damage he can do.  Like Paul Revere on Brown Beauty, let’s ride!  Let’s mutiny against stupidity and RAISE SOME CAINE!!


Kennedy Successor Brown

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I’m in……

I don’t know…. Love this movie and Bogarts’ portrayl of Queeg… but the point of the movie seems to be a bit off of your post. Sometimes, what seems so clear at the time isn’t so clear when reviewed after the fact. Queeg was inept, but maybe not as inept as the fairly junior officers on board thought he was. They resented him. So the movie and book weave a sense of certainty and then make it seem subjective afterwards.

Obama wasn’t really brought on board to fix crap… it was about the dems retaking control and effecting revenge for all the wrongs perceived by them for the last 20 years of grievances. Like a big festivus festival and the airing of grievances!

So the adolensent President gets elected and is instantly and daily shown to be out of his element… something that was obvious to any that weren’t compromised with BDS… and since that excluded the MSM, this tin-horn-nobody was elected…

So, I appreciate your post, but think this movie ( to me ) is not quite the match you draw, however, if Obama and his epic-fail got you to enjoy this classic movie… then it’s worth it!!

You’re overall point about throwing our dear leader a curve this fall is well taken. I’m right there with ya. The more push-back he gets, the more he unravels. He’s never known failure, though he’s embodied it his whole life.

Yippie21,

Point well taken. Any analogy is going to limp. The movie’s director had his own agenda. I’m just concentrating on the ‘revelation’ scene where it suddenly becomes clear to everyone that the Captain is a paranoid obsessive, something only a few had seen at first. That’s exactly what happened with the Massachusetts Miracle. A whole lot of eyes flew open to see what the more aware of us already knew. The cartoon in Wordsmith’s Sunday Funnies this past Sunday showing Obama in a beached ship with everyone jumping off is the sense we’ve all had since Brown’s win.

I want to add something which we won’t have any influences. Yes, the upcoming election will be like an earthquake.
What I don’t want to underestimate is the ‘man made disasters’ outside of the US. Al Quaida feels it’s the perfect time to pull off something spectaculr; our president is not paying attention to Iran, North Korea, Lebanon, Israel, Pakistan etcc..
In my gut gut I do not believe that Obama makes it for 4yrs; his inattention regarding national security could be his downfall. Islamic jihadist sense weakness, they don’t like weak horses, that’s why there is no respect for the Obamis.
What do we need healthcare, budgets, social security etc., when we have no national security, by showing disinterest whether Iran gets the bomb, or Jihadists are taken advantage of weakness???