Vladimir Putin dropped in (literally) on Donald Trump last night to tell of Russia’s joy about Trump’s election:
“We think you are the best candidate—”The last two lines drew significant laughs. Good on the SNL audience for getting the joke. Richard Condon’s 1959 novel The Manchurian Candidate was made into a film in 1962 and 2004. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to miss the joke.
“Sure.”
“The smartest candidate—”
“No doubt.”
“The Manchurian candidate.”
“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds tremendous.”
comments: 2
I guess it was inevitable the comparison would come up, at least among those of our generation and older folks. A couple of weeks ago, I began writing a short-short story about just that very idea. However, I didn't want to call Trump the Manchurian candidate.
In researching Manchuria, though, I learned it was (at one time) a Chinese puppet-state of the Japanese Empire; later it was ruled by the Soviets. Since the actors in the cyber-sabotage of the recent U. S. presidential election were Russian, but the ones pulling most of the strings are in the Communist Chinese government, I decided if I couldn't come up with the correct expression (Sino-Soviet no linger works), then I'd refer to Trump as the Neo-Manchurian candidate.
It's a work in progress.
I’ll be interested to see where you go.
I thought of Sarah Palin as a Manchurian candidate after an unidentified neo-con called her “a blank page” and granted that she was “a project.”
Post a Comment