Ep. 140 dissects Obama’s refusal to call the Orlando shooter a "radical Islamist," arguing it enabled extremism, while guest Jim Hoft—coming out as gay—criticizes the president for ignoring the threat. The host contrasts left-wing illogic (e.g., white men as inherently evil) with conservative views on LGBTQ+ rights and Chick-fil-A’s post-shooting charity, questioning whether liberals truly believe their own rhetoric. He ties Obama’s political correctness to election 2016, framing the debate as a failure of truthful discourse that fuels violence, comparing leaders to "bad parents" who avoid hard boundaries. [Automatically generated summary]
There are many drawbacks to the online political commentary that now clutters up the internet, making it harder to find the porn that I never look at.
Search engines designed to guide you to subjects that interest you end up preventing you from hearing differing points of view so that whether you search for Donald Trump or the budget deficit, you end up looking at two naked women in bed together or something else that might interest someone.
As a result, you begin to lose touch with the wide variety of political opinion, and instead you're continually reinforcing your own ideas.
This in turn makes you feel that everyone who disagrees with you is either stupid or crazy or works for ABC News and is therefore not worth listening to.
So, since the Daily Wire is a conservative website, as a public service, we're going to be offering you occasional primers on some of the rationales behind left-wing thought so that you can better understand and engage with your left-wing friends.
Today we'll begin with the concept of relativism.
According to left-wing thought, nothing is absolutely good or evil.
We are only conditioned by our culture to perceive things as good or evil.
So anyone who thinks his culture is good is evil.
And anyone who thinks another culture is evil is evil.
And anyone who's evil is therefore good, unless he's evil.
White men, for instance, are evil because they think black people are evil and there is no evil, so that's not good, because there is no good except for blacks who are good, because if you think they're evil, you're evil because there is no evil.
Women are also good because they're not men who are evil, unless they are men, in which case that's also good because nothing is good or evil, so it can't be evil to be a woman when you're a man, so it must be good.
People who say you're not a woman when you're a woman, although you're a man, are evil because it's good to be a woman if you're a man, unless, of course, you're just a man who says he's a woman who's a man, but are still a man who's a man, in which case you're evil.
Oppressing other cultures is evil because other cultures are just as good as our culture because there is no good or evil.
So to say they're not as good is evil.
This is also true of oppressing women and gay people unless you're from another culture, then that's good.
Or evil.
Wait.
Let me go over this again.
Nothing's good or evil, so all cultures are good.
So saying they're not good is evil, so we're evil and they're good.
And when they oppress women, that must also be good because to say they're evil is evil.
But if the women are men, then that's not good, because oppressing women who are men is evil because women are men and men are women, and evil is good, and good is evil.
I hope this explanation has broadened your mind and helped you to understand that our friends on the left aren't stupid or crazy or employed by ABC News or childish dribbling morons barely able to dress themselves employed by ABC News.
Instead, they're simply people like you and me trying to understand the world.
Just not this world.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Klavan, and this is The Andrew Klavan Show.
That would have been funnier if I didn't have the sense that President Obama was somewhere listening and going like, yeah, that makes sense.
I agree with that.
All right.
It's Mailbag Day.
Hey, it's Mailbag Day.
See, if you had just subscribed, you could have been part of this amazing day.
Words Matter00:15:19
It's just, it's free for 30 days and it's $8 a month, but instead you went and you spent your $8 on fast women and cars and now you can't be part of Mailbag Day.
So let's continue.
There's no point in moving off the subject because it's just, it's been so interesting, the aftermath of this horrible, horrible atrocity in Orlando.
The political aftermath has been absolutely fascinating.
I mean, I have to say, you know, all I try to do is call it the way I see it.
I mean, there's nothing I think about any of this that you don't know because I'm telling you what it is.
Right this minute, all these people who said that Donald Trump was an important guy because he would blow up the conversation, they would explode political correctness.
Right now, those people are looking very, very good because Trump, you know, the left has been just here.
Here's this guy who walks in and murders 49 people, hurts so many people.
It's just a horrible, horrible tragedy.
And he is in the thrall of a dangerous ideology.
He's a Democrat.
No, no, he's in the thrall.
He's a radical Islamist.
And, you know, and because he's a gay Democrat, radical Islamist, the left is just, they're tying themselves in knots.
It's the guns.
It's the fact that he's a man.
They're blaming Christians.
There's one website that was blaming video games.
And it said on the website, it says, there's no evidence that he looked at video games, but there's something wrong with these video games that turn you into a shit.
You know, like, you know, it's madness, man.
And Trump comes out and he says, duh, it's radical Islam.
And he says a lot of crazy stuff, too, like, you know, Obama's on their side and all this stuff.
But finally, this is getting under Obama's skin.
And to watch something get under Obama's skin is just too much fun in some ways.
I mean, I hate to associate fun with this tragedy, but there's something about finally watching somebody blow this guy up because he has been in this fantasy world for eight years while the press has sat there and going, oh, he's wonderful.
They treat him like a child.
They treat him like a child.
You're doing such a good job.
You're doing such a good job, Obama, you know?
And finally, Trump is basically talking to him like he's an adult.
So here's Obama finally just blowing up at Donald Trump.
For a while now, the main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against ISIL is to criticize this administration and me for not using the phrase radical Islam.
That's the key, they tell us.
We can't beat ISIL unless we call them radical Islamists.
What exactly would using this label accomplish?
What exactly would it change?
Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans?
Would it bring in more allies?
Is there a military strategy that is served by this?
The answer is none of the above.
Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.
This is a political distraction.
For a while now.
So suddenly, words don't matter.
Words don't matter.
Thoughts don't matter.
Ideas don't matter.
Words don't matter.
Let me just bring on someone who disagrees with that.
Play the opposing view.
Don't tell me words don't matter.
I have a dream.
Just words.
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
Just words.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Just words.
Just speeches.
It's true that speeches don't solve all problems.
But what is also true is if we cannot inspire the country to believe again, then it doesn't matter how many policies and plans we have.
Well, right, exactly.
Because of course words matter.
I mean, what else are we doing here but trying to discuss the ideas that are causing people to kill people?
This guy who killed these people in Orlando, he may have been crazy, he may have been gay, he may have even been, he may have even sunk to the level of becoming a Democrat, but those are not the reasons he committed these murders.
He committed these murders in the thrall of an ideology that has spread throughout the world in every country.
You know, the left is so provincial.
All they talk about is the guns in America.
You know, whether guns in America are a problem or not, I don't happen to think they are, but whether they are or not, these guys are killing people all over the world.
How is confiscating American guns going to stop them from killing people in Somalia and Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran and all the places around in Russia, in Spain, in England, all those places?
What are they talking about?
So suddenly, words don't matter.
This is the thing.
When you finally undermine their ideas, then ideas don't matter.
If it means that their narrative is going off the rails, you know, words, it's just words.
It's just words, you know, all of a sudden.
So here is, and the other thing they're doing, by the way, and you'll see this throughout the election, the left has now a machine in the entertainment industry, in the news industry, in the universities, for demonizing the right to the point where you only have to say the word, the name of the right, in order to make an argument.
They did this with Fox News.
You would say, oh, I saw on Fox, Fox.
It was on Fox.
It was on Fox News.
Fox.
Rush Limbaugh, it was on Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh.
And they're trying to do this to Donald Trump.
And the problem with Trump is he kind of deserves it half the time, but right now he doesn't.
And he has gotten right into their cross.
So here is Obama saying what this is classic Obama is this absolutely specious false reasoning in this world weary reasonable voice.
Like, how can you not see that every untrue thing I say is true?
So play Obama 3.
These are the plans.
Since before I was president, I've been clear about how extremist groups have perverted Islam to justify terrorism.
As president, I have repeatedly called on our Muslim friends and allies at home and around the world to work with us to reject this twisted interpretation of one of the world's great religions.
There's not been a moment in my seven and a half years as president where we have not been able to pursue a strategy because we didn't use the label radical Islam.
Not once has an advisor of mine said, man, if we really use that phrase, we're going to turn this whole thing around.
Not once.
So someone seriously thinks that we don't know who we're fighting.
If there's anyone out there who thinks we're confused about who our enemies are, that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists who we've taken off the battlefield.
Completely specious reasoning.
We know that they're killing some people, but we also know that he has let these guys get out of control when they were under control when he came into office.
It was better when he came into office than it is today.
It was better under George W. Bush for all the mistakes he made.
It was better than it is today.
He has let this get out of control.
And it's precisely because he doesn't know who he's fighting.
It's precisely because he does not know what he's up against.
And when he says it's a perversion of a great religion, all right, I can understand that as a strategy so as not to alienate people.
But, you know, the question is, as I've said before, the question is whether Islamism, whether or not Islamism is a natural outgrowth from Islam.
So, okay, he's a politician, fine.
He wants to say it's a great religion.
That's fine.
But I think there's an open question because when I look at every place that's dominated by Islam, every nation dominated by Islam is an oppressive tyranny, every single one.
Turkey trembling on the brink.
I mean, it just tends toward that.
So one guy who's gone out of the way, and this is, I'm going to go back and answer exactly why Obama's wrong in a minute.
But before I do, I have to say, I just have to point out this one guy who just hit the roof is Jim Hoff, the guy who created Gateway Pundit.
Gateway Pundit is one of the most hard-hitting right-wing blogs on the internet.
So far, right, a lot of times, that it's to the right of me.
Sometimes I'm like, whoa, Gateway Pundit.
He goes on my friend Steve Malzer's, my friend, I've just forgotten his name, show on Newsmax, and he announces, he comes out, that he's gay.
Now, he wasn't hiding it from his friends and the people know it, but now he's gone public with it.
And Steve Malzberg asks him why he's doing it now.
Tell me why you decided in the aftermath of the attack in Orlando, you felt the need to alert the rest of the world as well.
Well, Steve, what we saw Saturday night, Sunday morning, was a travesty.
And then to see the Democratic leaders come out, and they're still in denial.
Barack Obama, his denial is almost a psychosis now.
He just can't admit that this is radical Islam.
It's shocking to me.
I believe his policies allow for collateral damage of innocent Americans like the 50 gay men or 49 gay men who were slaughtered in that Pulse nightclub on Saturday night.
He's unwilling to change.
It infuriates me.
And we need a leader who's going to address the issue, not talk about gun control, but talk about radical Islam.
I believe the only person who is speaking that way and who has been is Donald Trump.
And it's disgusting what the Democrat Party is doing right now.
I'm shocked, and that's why I came out.
I couldn't stay quiet any longer, Steve.
Well, good for him, first of all.
I mean, you know, like, why should he, you know, this is the thing.
I've been talking about this all week, is the fact that we have this argument on the right about the nature of homosexuality, the nature of gay marriage, and all this stuff.
And I keep insisting, even though I know it, it makes both sides angry.
This is an argument between Christians.
One side is saying, you know, the shall not in Christianity, and there is a shall not in Christianity.
And the other side is saying, judge not.
You know, let's be more accepting as Jesus was on issues of sexuality in his time.
It's a perfectly fair argument.
But if you think it's the same, and this is the thing that the left keeps saying, the left keeps saying, oh, it's the same thing.
If you're opposed to gay marriage, you're just on the spectrum of these guys who went in and killed people.
That's nonsense.
And if you need to know it's nonsense, you only have to see how Chick-fil-A, you know, this is Dan Cathy, who's the guy at Chick-fil-A who runs Chick-fil-A and is opposed to gay marriage.
He immediately sent out chicken, you know, his meals to the people who were giving blood because he's a Christian, because he's not saying, I hate gay people.
He's saying, I oppose gay marriage.
It's a perfectly reasonable theological point to take.
I disagree with it because I think the nature of marriage has changed, not because I think it's, you know, I think we are redefining marriage, but I think marriage has already been redefined.
So I don't think it really matters at this point.
I think the nature of children and raising children is different.
And by the way, I see the comments that come in.
I know that a lot of people have a lot of theories about gay people.
All I'll say about that is it's really easy to have theories about people en masse if you don't know any of them.
You know, I mean, I really, when I hear people kind of go off on black people and this, you know, if you don't know any people like that, of that whatever category you're theorizing about, it's a lot easier to have theories about them when you meet people.
The theories don't really hold water.
I mean, the point is, you know, a gay guy who is living out his life in a loving way and a respectable way and a good citizen way.
It's just none of anybody's business.
It's just nobody's business.
It really is not anybody's business.
And I understand there are bad guys who go around trying to force small businesses and attack religion and use this as a wedge to separate us.
Those are bad guys.
They're bad guys.
What can I tell you?
Those are bad guys.
But Jim Hoft is right.
The only guy saying what he's saying is Donald Trump.
And what he is saying is true.
So his comeback to Obama is absolutely perfect.
I loved it.
Let's hear Trump.
I watched President Obama today, and he was more angry at me than he was at the shooter.
And many people said that.
One of the folks on television said, boy, has Trump gotten under his skin.
But he was more angry.
And a lot of people have said this, the level of anger, that's the kind of anger he should have for the shooter and these killers that shouldn't be here.
Hillary Clinton, just yesterday, used the term radical Islam.
Sort of used it, right, did you see?
And they all said, oh, Trump Forster, I shouldn't be forcing anything.
If you don't know what the term is, and if you don't discuss what the problem is, and if you can't say the real name, we have a radical Islamic terrorism problem, folks.
We can say we don't.
We can pretend like Obama that we don't, where Obama spent a long time talking about it, and nobody at the end of that speech understood anything other than, boy, does he hate Donald Trump?
I don't know.
When he's on his game, he smells blood.
You know, he's a bully.
And when he gets under people's skin, he knows it, and he smells blood.
And he realizes, this is, I think, the first time he realizes that the game plan he used in the primaries may work here.
Right now, the polls show Hillary, the latest poll shows Hillary with like a 12-point lead.
That's the effect, of course, of everybody unifying behind her as Bernie goes down in flames.
Same way he got a jump.
I'm not saying that Trump can beat her, but I am saying that this, he's beginning to smell his game, and he will find it.
He's a talented, natural politician.
He will find his game.
And he understands that this guy, Obama, has lived in a fantasy world for eight years, protected by the press.
And everybody's like shocked that Trump is just coming out and saying what everybody knows.
It's what everybody knows.
So it's like, you know, they make him look like a genius.
It's just, and by the way, just to answer Obama, what difference does it make?
What difference does it make?
What words we use?
He's provably wrong.
He's not just wrong.
Ben's Broad Impact00:04:46
He's provably wrong because we know people saw the San Bernardino shooter was going off the rails, but didn't say anything because they didn't want to be seen as bigoted.
We know people knew at his job, at his security job.
We know that the Orlando shooter, they knew he was going off the rails, but nobody wanted to say anything because they didn't want to say, oh, it's because he's Muslim.
Obama has cost people lives with this policy.
The left has cost people lives with this policy of not saying the truth.
If you, you know, lies do that to you.
So it's when he says, oh, we've got to get rid of guns because if we save the life of one child, he could save the life of a lot more people if he would just notice and say out loud and speak the truth about what is going on in the country.
All right.
The mailbag.
Hooray.
I got a lot of good questions.
You know, so many questions.
A lot of them were about Islam this week, obviously.
I kind of avoided some of those because I feel like we've been talking and talking about it.
Nice to talk about something else.
Here is one from George.
Dear Andrew, it seems to me that liberals do not believe their own facts.
Whenever I watch a Ben Shapiro or Milo Yiannopoulos event at a university and some woman brings up the statistic that one in four women will be raped, it seems to me that they themselves know they are lying.
For if they believed their statistic, they would never attend college.
If there was a free flight to Europe, but I was told that it had a one in four chance of crashing, I would never take it.
And the same seems to apply to the transgender issue.
No one is demanding that Bruce Jenner, Caitlin Jenner return his trophies.
The question simply is this.
Do you think that liberals actually believe their own lies?
I think that that is an excellent, excellent question.
And the answer is yes and no.
I mean, yes and no.
They obviously know that what they are saying is illogical.
I mean, they live unlike conservatives who are surrounded by liberal thought.
This is why conservatives think better than leftists, because we're surrounded by leftist thought.
We have to answer it all the time.
We have to answer it all the time.
Every time I turn on the news, every time I watch an entertainment show, I have to say, no, that's wrong because this, this, this, and this.
That sounded good, but it's wrong because of this, this, and this.
It hones your argument.
You never go on and get interviewed in the mainstream without somebody attacking you.
So it hones your argument.
They don't have that.
And the same thing that happens to them is happening to Obama.
He lives in this bubble in which it is very entirely possible for the human mind to completely kid itself and deceive itself.
So do they know that what they're saying makes sense?
Watch their faces when you challenge their logic.
Something clicks and they go like, you know, so they have convinced themselves that these things are true, even as they don't behave as if they are.
You know, Al Gore, perfect example, flying around on his jets saying the end of the world is nigh, buying a house in Santa Barbara that sucks up all the energy.
If you thought the end of the world is nigh, would you buy a house on the coast?
You know, I mean, like, Donald Barber is the first to go.
But like, if anybody said that to him, he would have this long, you know, the fact that the polar bears aren't dying, the fact that the oceans aren't rising, all that stuff.
He would have a long explanation.
But they live in a bubble, and in that bubble, they believe their lies.
And when they are disturbed for a moment, you can see it in their eyes.
They come out of it, and then they go right back into it again.
From Jared.
Hey, Andrew, I was just curious if you have ever read any of the writings of David Foster Wallace, and if so, what were your thoughts?
He's the guy who wrote Infinite Chest.
I met Kevin Williamson, the wonderful, terrific writer at the National Review, one of the smartest writers on the right.
And I met him on a bus and didn't know who he was.
It's many years ago, before he had really risen in prominence.
So we were sitting on a bus going on the NRO cruise, and I just started chatting him up.
Who are you?
You know, what's going on?
I could tell within about a minute, under a minute, that this was a brilliant, brilliant guy.
And I started to say, well, gee, what are you reading?
What do you enjoy?
And he said, oh, you've got to read Infinite Chest by David Foster Wallace.
Infinite Chest is like a thousand pages long.
So I thought, this guy is so smart that if he tells me I have to read Infinite Chest, I've been putting, I was one of those books I was saving for after I was dead.
But I thought, oh, listen, if this guy, this is how much respect I had for him, literally within a minute.
So I go back and I read Infinite Chest.
It takes me three months to read this book.
And what I thought of this is that I thought Wallace was a genius and a drunk, and his alcoholism destroyed his genius.
And I think the book is a utter mess.
It is an utter mess with about, it's a thousand pages, it's got 300 pages in it, mostly about Alcoholics Anonymous, that is so brilliant that it's mind-searing.
I'll never forget it.
So I think he was a genius, but I don't think he wrote a good book.
I think he wrote a chaotic mess of a really horrible book.
I hear some of his shorter essays are very readable and good, and I will go back and read them.
But I read Infinite Chest, I thought it was a mess.
Obligation To Choose00:05:38
The next time I saw Kevin, I called him aside.
And I said, I got a bone to pick with you, buddy.
You may be smart, but don't ever get me that again.
All right.
From Al-Hafiz.
Hey Andrew, I really enjoy your show.
Is there any reason why your show tends to be shorter than Ben's?
He's overcompensating.
No, I like personally, Ben covers more ground.
He does a lot of subjects.
I like to stick to a theme and a subject, and it makes the show naturally shorter.
And I like to feel at the end of the show that I still have more to say.
I never want to feel like I'm filling.
That's the way I do it.
So it's just the way I react to the pressure of being on is by making sure I have enough to say, and he covers a lot more ground and does a lot more subjects and things like that.
Also, I'm a writer.
I've spent most of my life in a room by myself.
Ben is a natural radio talent.
I'm flying a little bit more blind than his.
The rest of the question is, do you two sometimes work together to work on one another's shows?
No.
I mean, we talk often and get into great discussions, and the things he says affect me.
I think sometimes the things I say affect him.
And that's great, but we would never interfere with the other guy's show.
From Louie or Lewis, L-O-U-I-S. Lewis.
Are you considering protest voting for Gary Johnson?
Great show, by the way.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate the aside.
No, I'm not.
And I will tell you why I am wrestling with this so much, why this is such a difficulty for me.
A lot of people are saying, well, I will lodge a protest vote or I won't vote.
I really have a hard time with that logic, and I will try to explain why.
America, in a way, is two countries.
It is the creedal country, the country based on our creed.
And if it destroys that creed, it ceases to be that country.
And there is a point when it betrays that creed so badly that you would be justified in basically walking away from the country as the good Germans were under Nazi Germany.
But our country is also our country.
And when people react to nationalism negatively, you know, I always think of that poem, and I can't remember for the moment who wrote it.
Lives there a man with souls so dead who never to himself has said, this is my own, my native land.
You know, this is my native land.
It raised me, it nurtured me, it gave me everything I have.
It made me who I am.
And I love this country in a way that has nothing to do with its creed.
You know, I love the country's creed, and if it ever fully betrays that creed, it'll lose me.
Then it'll lose me, and I will absent myself.
But as long as it hasn't fully betrayed that creed, and it hasn't, it's still my native land, and I feel obligated, even though my vote is in California and probably means literally nothing.
I feel obligated to make a choice between the bad choices that it has thrown up to me.
And I know they're bad choices.
I think they're awful choices, but I feel obligated to make that choice.
And I don't feel justified in saying, well, my country threw up a bad choice, so I'm walking away because I love this country.
There was a guy who said he had made a mistake not going to Vietnam because this country was great enough to die for it, even when it was wrong.
And that's kind of the way I feel right now.
Obviously, not as dramatic, but I feel that this country is great enough where even when it makes a mistake and throws up two of the worst people in the country to run it, I've got to choose between them.
And I think it's a terrible choice to have to make.
But that's why I'm not considering throwing my vote away.
And it's also why this election is causing me such a headache.
From Jake, hey, Andrew, in the wake of Orlando, I think there's only one question that needs to be answered.
How do we stop the spread and influence of radical Islam without restricting citizens' First Amendment rights?
I think that's kind of what we've been talking about all week, that the thing is, is we don't really need to restrict people from worshiping their God.
We need to answer people.
We need to speak up honestly, straightforwardly, without fear, without censorship, without calling each other haters about the problem, this cancer in Islam, and what is its true nature.
We need to hold people to account.
You know, it's just like, you know, Obama and Hillary and the left are acting like bad parents.
You know, when your kids act up, I've heard people, I hear people do this on the street.
I want to shake them.
They'll go, please stop.
Please stop doing that.
Please stop.
You know, that's not the way it works.
You know, when your kids are being disobedient, you have to say, look, these are the limits.
This is how we feel.
This is how we behave in this family.
And this is what happens if you don't do that.
You know, in some way, the leaders of countries have to do that to the citizens.
They have to say, look, you cannot believe this.
You know, instead, because of Obama's point of view and the left's point of view that they can't attack Islam, they leave cops so they can't do their jobs.
You know, they think it's racial profiling and all this.
So I think we just have to speak honestly.
And some of us, some of us are going to have to take the hit of being called haters.
Some of us are going to have to take the hit of maybe being blown away.
Let's hope that doesn't happen.
But we know it has happened.
It is the truth which sets you free, and it is the truth which ultimately will defeat more than guns, more than guns.
It's the truth that will ultimately defeat radical Islam, I hope.
I'm sure.
I think it will.
All right.
Let me add also to say thank you to all the people who wrote in and said that you had pre-ordered my book, The Great Good Thing, A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ.
I'm really excited about it.
It doesn't come out till September, but if you think you might like it, please go on Amazon or one of the other sites and pre-order it.
The Great Film: Sunset Boulevard00:03:21
The Great Good Thing.
It is my memoir, and I'm very proud of it.
And I think a lot of people who are reading the advanced copies are giving me great feedback, so I think you'll enjoy it.
Stuff I like.
I've been doing a film noir, which I love so much all week, and I'll come back to it again, you know, because I'm not having half exhausted the number of great film noirs.
But this one may be, it's one of the two best, I think.
Sunset Boulevard.
If you have never seen Sunset Boulevard, if you only think you've seen it, if you've only seen scenes from it or you've seen the musical from it, you are missing one of the greatest movies ever made.
It is a uniquely great.
Have you seen it?
Oh, man.
It is a uniquely great movie.
It's half a crime story, half a horror story, half a drama.
It is a powerful, powerful story by Billy Wilder, another film he did Double Indemnity 2.
It's a film about a down-on-his-luck screenwriter in 40s, I guess it's 1950 the film came out, so it's late 40s Hollywood, who is trying to escape, they're trying to repossess his car, and he turns into a mansion just by accident.
He just turns in, and what he finds is this crazy, silent film star has been played by Gloria Swanson.
Yeah, Gloria Swanson, who sucks him into her world.
And it is a weird, weird, weird movie, but so cool and so exciting.
And the first thing she does to him is she mistakes him for the pet undertaker who has come to help her bury her pet monkey.
And William Holden plays the screenwriter, and he thinks this is hilarious, but as he's walking out the door, he suddenly recognizes her, and this is that scene.
Wait a minute, haven't I seen you before?
I know your face.
Get out, or shall I call my servant?
You're Norma Desmond.
Used to be in silent pictures.
Used to be big.
I am big.
It's the pictures that got small.
I knew there was something wrong.
They're dead.
They're finished.
There was a time in this business when they had the eyes of the whole wide world.
But that wasn't good enough for them.
Oh, no.
They have to have the ears of the world, too.
So they opened their big mouths and out came talk.
Talk, talk.
That's where the popcorn business comes in.
You buy yourself a bag and plug up your ears.
Look at them in the front offices.
The masterminds.
They took the idols and smashed them.
The Fairbanks, the Gilberts, the Valentinos.
And all we got now, some nobody.
Don't blame me.
I'm not an executive, just a writer.
You are.
Writing words, words, more words.
Well, you've made a rope of words and strangled this business.
But there's a microphone right there to catch the last gurgles.
And Technicolor to photograph the red, swollen tongue.
I am big.
It's the pictures that got smaller.
There must be four or five lines of the greatest lines in movie history, greatest lines of dialogue in movie history.
That's one of them.
They're very famous.
I mean, once you see the film, you'll hear those lines said everywhere, ready for my close-up, all this stuff.
It's an absolutely great film.
Truly one of, at least one of the 20 greatest films ever made, and great film noir.
Sunset Boulevard.
I'm Andrew Clavin.
This is the Andrew Clavin Show.
We will wrap up the week tomorrow, Thursday, and then plunge into the darkness of the Clavenless weekend.