On WND, Erik Rush doesn’t think the wholesale promotion of minority actors to command positions on highly-rated TV shows is just a coincidence:

An interesting phenomenon has recently come to light … suggesting that at least one faction in Hollywood is attempting to directly influence public opinion as regards President Obama. If this is true, it goes far beyond simply carrying the water for those with whom they are ideologically kindred, as described in Negrophilia.

. . . . In order to to counter the perception of ineptitude that has come about associated with Obama and his lack of leadership skills, an effort seems to have been made to portray blacks in high places as competent leaders in dramatic roles.

To be fair, some of these occurrences took place prior to Obama actually taking office, but a good case could be made that it was the intent of these organizations to prepare the American public for the leadership of a black individual via positive portrayals of black leaders. I would contend that America needed no such preparation, but that’s another issue. The stronger argument exists in these concerned parties making their efforts in the face of Obama’s subsequent plummeting popularity.

In any case: Within the past two years, the producers of several popular police dramas have made wholesale replacements of Caucasian leadership figures with black characters.

Read more of Rush’s article — “Are TV Dramas Pimping Obama Propaganda?” — here.

Meanwhile, Jack Cashill thinks European film critics are snubbing the latest True Grit on political as well as religious grounds:

If I might speculate, the Europeans likely slighted True Grit for its unapologetic celebration of republican virtue. I refer here to those virtues necessary to build a successful republic: self-reliance, resourcefulness, strength, competence, charity, piety.

Unfortunately, these virtues are as alien to our own president as they are to the Europeans, which may explain why Barack Obama’s approval ratings in Europe still hover in the 90 percent range.

. . . . If the foreign critics were observant, they saw something else about Mattie they could not have liked – her faith. In this regard, the Coens are much more straightforward than Henry Hathaway, who directed the 1969 version.

“You must pay for everything in this world one way and another,” says Mattie as narrator in the opening scene. “There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.”

This line comes from the Portis book, but the Coens close with a song of their own choosing, one that completes the circle implicit in the opening narrative, Iris Dement’s version of “Leaning On the Everlasting Arms.”

Read Cashill’s article — “Why the Golden Globes Snubbed True Grit” — here.