Back in the day, the 50s to be precise, Pat Boone was a white-bread singer of moderate talent whose primary appeal was to young republicans and the parents of the kids hopping and bopping, and jamming, and necking and petting, to Elvis, Bill Haley, Jerry Lewis, and Little Richard. He was a punk then, and so remains to this minute. I'd break my collection of his 45s, if I'd ever bought tone--I didn't!
The thing about Boone then was that he "covered" a lot of black and true rock-and-roll singers, such as turning Fats Domino's smarmy, throbbing promise of sex, make-out version of Blue Berry Hill into a innocuously pukish ballad. The thing about Boone now, other than his insane need to appear as a teenager to this day --right daddy-o?--is that in addition to claiming to be the founder of the Beverly Hills chapter of the so-called Tea Party, he fronts the insurance and drug industry funded 60-Plus organization in its attempt to roll back health care reform.
If Boone had gone to my high-school he would have been on the wedgie-a-day list, and locked in hall lockers, or tossed pantless into the girls showers at weekly intervals. I'm tellin' you, he was a simpering no talent punk who managed to ride "mellow" to a fortune. That, and his born-again personae got him to where he is now.
Why so much rancor aimed at a no talent has-been--who never really was? Why?
Well, if pandering and pimping the Tea-Party is not sufficient, consider the 60-Plus organization. Boone, as their paid shill and mouthpiece, has been heard to utter these outrageous words; "Barack Obama is a president without a country, water boarding America with socialistic health care and other liberal causes". Beyond that, according to Jon Perr, writing in Crooks and Liars, Boone has called for the "metaphorical gassing" of "all manner of parasites, vermin, roaches, rats, worms and termites" in Obama's White House team. This punk Boone made his fortune by "covering" black artists and now uses code words to describe the President and White House as resembling a stereotypical "project". The connotation is clearly racist!
But, Boone is merely a stooge, a life size cutout to prop in front of gullible seniors who were conned or frightened into believing the drug oligarch's and insurance tsar's lies about death panels and loss of Medicare during the health care reform debate. Now, the conning continues as the group targets pro-health care reform candidates in Arizona, Florida, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. These are all states with large senior populations and 60 Plus is flooding the airwaves with their lies and distortions once again in an attempt to frighten unwary seniors.
In past years, 60 Plus was the beneficiary of boucoups big bucks from PhRMa, the drug company's lobby group. Correspondingly, while claiming to be a "grassroots" organization, it receives absolutely no money from membership fees--such phony "grassroots' organizations are called AstroTurf by the informed.
When you stir all this in with the news yesterday posted by the LA Times that the drug and insurance companies are pouring money into Republican campaign coffers (3 times as much as given to Democrats) it is very clear that they are dead set on revision or roll back of our hard fought and narrowly won health care reform victory.
Pat Boone, who poses as a "Christian", seems not to care that if 60 Plus and the drug and insurance companies win, we will go back to allowing insurance companies to deny coverage to sick children, or older people with pre-existing conditions, or cancellation when the policy is really used. Well, after all, a no-talent punk has to make a buck somehow and it's a cinch he isn't going to make it from record sales or movie residuals.
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