The Great Emancipator, a great moment, a great mistake and the Oscars

DeVine Law, even during our increasingly strict TV sabbatical of the past several years, always watches the Academy Awards even if we don’t see most of the nominated movies until they appear years later on TNT. We especially miss the days when Billy Crystals and Johnny Carsons hosted the event, but the annual show itself is usually very entertaining no matter the host and we look forward to seeing if Seth MacFarlane is a true Family Guy in that role tonight.

But we are especially interested in this year’s 85th installment of the Oscars for reasons conservative political, and literary.

Les Miserables has to be one of our five favorite novels of all-time and we have enjoyed every film version of it we have ever seen whether Jean Valjean is played by Frederic March, Liam Neeson or Gérard Depardieu; and police officer Javert by Charles Laughton, Geoffrey Rush or John Malkovich. But its the story of abject poverty in the face of unjust law that makes the story so compelling and timeless. We hope we can catch it before 2014 on Netflix if we can still afford it in the increasingly Les Miserables Obama economy, but I digress.

This Fighting  Gamecock didn’t join the Party of Lincoln until our Summer of 2001 conservative epiphany after leaving the Palmetto State for the Peach State, both of which were burned by General Sherman at the orders of Commander-in-Chief Lincoln. But President Lincoln’s portrait continuously graced our legal and corporate offices in South Carolina and Georgia since a late 1980s visit to his memorial in D.C. We loved Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Great Mohicans, My Left Foot, and There Will Be Blood; and wouldn’t mind seeing his portrayal of the first Republican to fight race-obsessed Democrats garner him a statuette for Best Actor in a leading role.

The second president to hail from the state of Illinois has little in common with Abraham Lincoln (b. Nolin Creek, Kentucky) nor with the only president naturally born in the Land of Lincoln (Ronald Reagan, Tampico); but the story of the Zero Dark Thirty capture and elimination of Osama bin Laden, the gathering of the intel that made it possible by President George W. Bush against then-Senator Obama’s wishes , and his al Qaeda aftermath in Benghazi, goes a long way toward defining his presidency in foreign policy. One flash. Little substance.

Finally, here’s hoping Django remains chained to the Oscar loser category and on to the Academy Award-winning crowings of Cockstradamus:

DeVine Law Gamecock’s hopes for Les Miserables, Denzel Washington (Flight)  and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) to win the top three Oscars; Cockstradamus, now roosted atop Stone Mountain of Georgia (after an interminable years-long sabbatical in the Azores) predicts Argo, Daniel Day-Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) will take Best Picture, Actor and Actress, respectively.

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson