Orange County Register

When we’re right we’re right. But when we’re wrong, we correct the record.

In this blog (see below) yesterday we repeated something from James Taranto’s Best of the Web blog about President Obama. It turns out Taranto got it wrong. So, consequently so did we.

We publish his correction here (and hope he’s got that right):

Homer Nods In yesterday’s lead item, we erred in stating that Norma Desmond is in the White House. That is to say, the setup for that punch line turned out to be based on false information. NewsBusters.org reports that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs did not say President Obama had watched an HBO special on his campaign instead of election returns Tuesday night. - James Taranto, Best of the Web, Wall Street Journal

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Original post follows:

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We know it takes an ego larger than the standard issue to be a politician. All those cameras, reporters with notepads, babies to be kissed, hands to shake. Ya gotta love it. We think the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto has put his finger on particular revealing evidence for this truism.

“Good Lord, we’ve gone and put Norma Desmond in the White House,” Taranto writes in today’s Best of the Web.

“How so?” you might ask.

Flash back to that cinema classic, Sunset Boulevard. Recall the main character? Norma Desmond, the ever so self-absorbed big star from a bygone era.

Her classic line when Joe Gillis encounters her told it all. The exchange went like this:

Joe Gillis: “You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big. “

Norma Desmond: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

Taranto relates what happened at the White House Tuesday night where President Obama issued a statement saying he wasn’t going to comment on, or even watch on TV, the election returns that resulted in Democratic losses in Virginia and New Jersey.

“Man,” writes Taranto, “is he ever focusing on himself! NewsBusters.org reports on what he was doing last night when he was ignoring the election returns:”

“During the 10AM ET hour of America’s Newsroom on Fox News Channel, fill-in co-host Martha Maccallum told viewers what President Obama watched on election night while Democrats suffered big losses in New Jersey and Virginia: ‘Robert Gibbs said, well, he was actually watching, you know, the HBO special about his year-long campaign and how it all went’.”

Yep. The president preferred to watch a film about his own halcyon days rather than be brought down to earth by the less-than-inspiring real-time election results of men he “supported.” Even though just the other day he had said that a loss in New Jersey would be an embarrassment to the White House. (Maybe if you don’t look, it’s less embarrassing.)

Democrats losing? As Norma might have put it: “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

Cue the press corps.

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