Sherry Chandler

MoDo says:

The dollar’s crumpling, the recession’s thundering, the Dow’s bungee-jumping and the world’s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called “The Most Happy Fella.”

Patricia Ward Kelly says:

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president’s clumsy performances. To suggest that “George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly” represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

When Gene was compared to the grace and agility of Jack Dempsey, Wayne Gretzky and Willie Mays, he was delighted. But to be linked with a clunker — particularly one he would consider inept and demoralizing — would have sent him reeling.

Graduated with a degree in economics from Pitt, Gene was not only a gifted dancer, director and choreographer, he was also a most civilized man. He spoke multiple languages; wrote poetry; studied history; understood the projections of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He did the Sunday Times crossword in ink. Exceedingly articulate, Gene often conveyed more through movement than others manage with words.

Sadly, President Bush fails to communicate meaningfully with either. For George Bush to become Gene Kelly would require impossible leaps in creativity, erudition and humility.

Patricia Ward Kelly
Los Angeles, March 16, 2008

Via Atrios.

Especially humility.

Update: Harry’s got a glimpse of the master.

Hanging lopsided and heavy, high above the eastern horizon, ungainly and
Unreflective as a lump of coal in the daylight sky, the mid-March gibbous
Moon waxes toward the Worm or the Crow, the Chaste or the Sap. Eternal
Pale-faced Puritan, she marches toward the Lenten, leading a parade of
Bonnets, baskets, bunnies, plastic eggs, sermons, and the promise that once
Again we will have rebirth, long light, and clouds of daffodils to blind the sun.
Cratered and inconstant, ghostly as a governess, out of her element, out-of-
Kilter, our cold, kinetic handmaiden swells and grows pregnant with spring.

This moon-phase animation was created by Tomruen and can be found at the lunar phase entry of Wikipedia.