Rick Santorum Disses 'Smart' People, Tries To Endorse Mitt Romney At Values Voter Summit: VIDEO

AFTER THE JUMP, see Rick Santorum's suddenly infamous speech at this weekend's Values Voter Summit.

The part of Rick's speech to so far command the most attention arrives near the end, when the ex-senator explains why "the media" will never be on the side of conservatives:

We're gonna trust you. That's why the media doesn't go along with us. You have to understand that. They don't like conservatism. They like the other side. Not necessarily -- I would argue -- because they necessarily agree with them. Because they can influence the country. You see, if just a few people make decisions about what this world looks like, what this country looks like, then you can people sitting in offices -- major media outlets, and in Hollywood -- they can deal with a small group of people ... it's much harder if all of you collectively build America. It's much harder to influence you. We will never have the media on our side. Ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do. 

Fun as it is to pretend that Rick was declaring war on smart people with that remark, it's pretty plain he was being sarcastic. More interesting, maybe, is Rick's sputtering from about the 5:00 - 7:00, as he tries to find words to convincingly endorse of Mitt Romney, a man he apparently despises. Check it out.

Off-Record Mitt Romney Says '47 Percent' Of Americans Are 'Entitled': VIDEO

Several weeks ago, I posted a video of what appeared to be Mitt Romney addressing a group of high-rolling donors about traveling to China to buy a factory. It was interesting to hear the candidate talk off-record in such sympathetic environs. He sounded genuine. Not likeable, necessarily, but at least recognizably mammalian.

Below is a much shorter video, seemingly from a similar event. Thanks to the Sky Dancing blog for calling attention to it, and to Ms. Ann Onymous for posting it to the web. Ms. Onymous has posted a bunch of these things in the last month -- the vid in which Mitt (or someone who sounds exactly like him) acknowledges, graciously, that he was born "with a silver spoon" in his mouth; the vid in which he pines for a foreign policy that commits 20,000 or so American troops to Iraq, indefinitely; the vid in which he jokes that he'd have an easier time becoming president if he was Latino. But none is so interesting as the one below.

The full quote from Mitt (or someone who sounds exactly like him):

There are 47% of the people who will vote for the President no matter what. Alright? There are 47% who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe the government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe they are entitled! To healthcare! To food! To housing!

Again: The video's short. It's impossible to know if this quote's been taken out of context. Maybe Mitt (or someone who sounds exactly like him) prefaced it by saying: "I would have to be a terrible person to say something like ..." or perhaps "Too many of my Republican colleagues like to demonize the other side, by saying things such as ..."

Or maybe the video is what it appears to be: Mitt Romney (or someone who sounds exactly like him) saying that half of the American electorate is comprised of slobs.

I can't help but think of how the other fellow running for president characterizes those who vote for his opponent -- how he emphasizes the essential sameness of people, and the sad supeficiality of their political differences. That other fellow, please recall, is the one allegedly running a campaign of "division and hate."

See the vid AFTER THE JUMP ...

DemRapidResponse On Values Voter Summit: VIDEO

Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Ollie North, Jim DeMint, Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, Steve King, Michele Bachmann, and Kirk Cameron all spoke yesterday at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit (where, if the VVS's twitterfeed has it right, someone named Star Parker just suggested President Barack Obama's popularity among young people might lead to something like Mao's Cultural Revolution). Rick Santorum shall be speaking presently. The VVS's talks haven't yet made it to the web; the blooper-reel's nowhere near compiled; and yet already the industrious Democrats at DemRapidResponse have addressed the summit with an ad.

Take a look AFTER THE JUMP ...

The Archbishop Of Canterbury On Church, State, Marriage, And More: VIDEO

In what was probably his final major interview before resigning as Archbishop of Canterbury, the always thoughtful Rowan Williams continued to baffle liberals, conservatives, Christians, and secularists alike in a far-randing discussion with The Daily Telegraph. 

On the question of marriage equality in Britain, which Williams's Anglical Communion has opposed, the self-described "hairy lefty" maintains a position that has always frustrated marriage's opponents and supporters more or less equally. The church cannot perform same-sex weddings, says Williams, but still:

[The church] has been too – he says “lily mouthed” before correcting himself: “We’ve not exactly been on the forefront of pressing for civic equality for homosexual people, and we were wrong about that.”

To those who fear the constitutional consequences, he says legalising gay marriage would not of itself trigger disestablishment. “We’ve been assured that there will be no pressure on the Church to perform marriages, but of course as things stand, every citizen has the right to be married in Church. That’s alright, so long as the State’s definition of marriage and the Church’s definition are the same. If the State’s definition shifts … then we have a tangle.”

Hear more from the interview AFTER THE JUMP ...

George Takei's Big Weekend: VIDEO

Congrats to the fabulous gay man, excellent actor, hilarious Facebook photo-poster, and all-around mensch George Takei on his big weekend. Not only is today the 46th birthday of Star Trek -- the show on which Takei became famous as Mr. Sulu, maybe the first heroic TV role ever given to a Japanese American -- but this is also the first weekend of previews for Allegiance, a new musical by Jay Kuo, Marc Acito, and Lorenzo Thione, in which George Takei stars at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre.

From the Old Globe's website:

Allegiance is an epic story of family, love and patriotism set during the Japanese American internment of World War II. Sixty years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a chance meeting forces WWII veteran Sam Kimura (television and film star George Takei) to remember his family's relocation from their California farm to the Heart Mountain internment camp. As they struggle to adjust to their new home, Young Sam (Telly Leung – Godspell, "Glee") and his sister Kei (Lea Salonga, Tony Award winner for Miss Saigon) find themselves torn between loyalty to their family and allegiance to their country. With its moving score, ALLEGIANCE takes audiences on a journey into our nation's history through the eyes of one American family.

As it happens, Mr. Takei spent a portion of his childhood in one of the United States' Japanese internment camps. Here you can hear him discuss the experience on PRI's The World. And AFTER THE JUMP, you can hear one of Allegiance's songs and view some photos from rehearsal.

Allegiance officially opens at the Old Globe on September 19th.

The Only Cat Video In The History Of Cat Videos To Take The Grand Prize At A Film Festival: VIDEO

Thousands -- thousands! -- of Minnesotans showed up for the first-ever Internet Cat Video Festival in Minneapolis on Thursday. Many of them wore whiskers. From the New York Times:

The crowd — easily double what organizers expected — packed the lawn outside the museum, spilling onto the sidewalks across the street ... They all settled in for a screening of cats behaving badly, or cutely, or mysteriously, sometimes all at once. That much of the audience had already seen the clips on YouTube did not seem to diminish the enthusiasm. Quite the contrary.

“People watch them, and they watch them over and over and over again,” said Gretchen Sealls, 65, a retired banker who drove five hours from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I think you’re going to see a lot of copycat versions of this,” she added. “No pun intended.” ...

It is an axiom of Internet life that the cat video is king ...

... which is why when Katie Hill, an associate at Minneoplis's Walker Art Center, began crowd-sourcing cat videos online she received ten thousand submissions  "within months." These were whittled down to the just 79 that made the Film Festival's cut on Thrusday. Of those 79 outstanding cat vids, only one could win the festival's prestigious (?) Golden Kitty Award. That trenchant video is viewable AFTER THE JUMP ...