SECOND CHANCE

In case you just emerged from a coma or you live in a cave in northern Pakistan; Ted Williams is the homeless guy who became the subject of viral video that captivated the Internet:

The talking heads in the (mostly) Liberal Mainstream Media are having a slobbering love affair with this guy.


Keeping in spirit of the Land of Second Chances, this piece of human flotsam has been offered a full-time job AND a mortgage on a home by Quicken Loans Arena and the Cleveland Cavaliers. CNBC's Darren Rovell confirmed the authenticity of the offer on Twitter - there is no word whether the offer has been accepted or signed at this point.


FOR THE RECORD DEPT:

Thanks to the way Barney Frank and Chris Dodd screwed up the credit market it took me over FOUR MONTHS of hardcore number-crunching and creative paper-shuffling to qualify for the mortgage on the house I just closed on. Never mind the fact that my Army retirement covers the payments - I could flip burgers and STILL be living in hog heaven - because I'm a 1099 contractor and not a W-2 I got denied TWO TIMES. The second time I was turned down by Fannie Mae was on VETERANS DAY. That's a nice touch there; that's your Government taking care of it's own there . . . heh . . .


This modern Cinderella story brings to mind the Peter Sellers film Being There - a modern fable by Jerzy Kosinski.

The story goes: Chance the simple-minded gardener spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. Chance never left the estate he worked until his employer dies, when he is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from watching cartoons on TV. After a run-in with a limousine, he ends up the guest of a woman (Eve) and her husband Ben, an influential but sickly billionaire (who dwells in a wing of the mansion that's been converted into a high-end oxygen tent). Now called Chauncey Gardner, Chance becomes friend and confidante to Ben, and an unlikely political insider.

So what we basically have here with this Ted Williams guy is the story of Chance, the Gardener. He has become the quintessential overnight celebrity:

Andy Warhol's "fifteen minutes of fame", personified.


Watching the boobheads gush over this knucklehead, I joked to my wife, "You know, he's dating Katie Couric."

"SHUT UP! Get out of town! . . . REALLY?"

"Oh yeah, the vid clip of them gettin' down, her doing her Cougar dance on him - it's all over the Internet."

"Hhhmmmppphhh!!!"

In Being There, Chance's simple utterances are mistaken for profundity. At the end of the film Ben (the billionaire) succombs to his Hollywood chronic disease; as he is being interred into his mausoleum, we see the power brokers and kingmakers confer - Chauncey Gardner will be the next President of the United States.

Ted Williams is the talk of the town; my brother and I reviewed this phenomenon for AT LEAST fifteen minutes:

"He looks like Obama."

"Rush Limbaugh says he looks like Geraldo."

"I think he looks like Obama, once he got the haircut. I think he's a dead ringer. They could use him as a double; that other Hussein guy had about fifteen look-alikes."

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! DEPT:

Homeless-man-turned-Internet-sensation Ted Williams, 53, has a rap sheet that includes theft, robbery, escape, forgery and drug possession. The Brooklyn native has at least six mug shots:

The conclusion is obvious; Ted Williams should be the next President of the United States. That new 'No Labels' crowd could run him as their candidate; he is the perfect counterfoil to the Tea Party's Sarah Palin. He certainly meets Bill Buckley's criteria:

"I'd rather be governed by the first 200 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."
- William F. Buckley

I dunno about looking like Obama, though. If you ask me, they finally found Buckwheat:

That's my story and I'm sticking to it . . .


. . . SEAN LINNANE SENDS

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