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I'm Jack Nicholson and I approve this message

Today I was introduced to Jack Nicholson's video endorsement of Clinton. It is currently making the rounds on YouTube:

Here's the problem I see with his montage-style endorsement: Nicholson lets his fictional characters do the talking and the most obvious problem here is that Nicholson rarely plays sympathetic characters. When the Joker asks me "Who do you trust?" and Col. Jessop from A Few Good Men tells me how military leadership should work, I don't feel benevolent towards their recommendation. Then there's the appalling moment when we return to Jessop to hear him talk about the sexiness of a woman in power. Is speaking through the mouths of liars, murderers, and psychopaths the best strategy to forward an endorsement?

Jack Nicholson in The ShiningJack Nicholson being roughed up in ChinatownNicholson screaming you can't handle the truth in a few good men
Are these the cultural icons one wants associated with one's campaign?

At least, to follow up on Tim's post about the Devil and Hillary Clinton, we have no Witches of Eastwick

The call is coming from inside the House!

Check out a new political ad from the Clinton campaign:

Making the Best out of Your Hook Hand When Running for Senate

In Oregon, one of the 49 states that I am not from, Democratic Senate candidate Steve Novick has released a few campaign ads that cleverly play on two of his attributes that might otherwise be construed as weaknesses, his 4'9" height and his prosthetic hand. A friend forwarded me a link to a Huffington Post blog entry about the ads. I have embedded the actual ads below.

I like to use short videos like these in my rhetoric class to get students talking about basic rhetorical principles, such as how a person develops a particular ethos, and what the ramifications of that ethos might be for various artists.

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