• Shorter David Brooks:
"Yes, the David Brooks Republican candidate for President is a complete stiff, but here's some 50s pop sociology which would explain why he's an inept panderer as well, assuming we were all as intellectually rigorous as tweeners at a slumber party".
Look, Romney is your problem. So, too, is finding excuses for the impotence of Republican "moderates" in the face of the mass lunacy of 98% of the party. I leave you to it, Dave, with my best wishes; but you've had six years now to come up with something on Romney, and all you've got is a wish sandwich and some sidewalk psychoanalysis of the Post War Suburban Boom?
Enough, really. You and all the other public thinkers of the Republican party have tried to portray this field as insufficiently electable as though that was just a projection of their Q ratings. Even the recent admissions of the obvious--that Herman Cain is a buffoon, Michele Bachmann a religious maniac, Rick Perry a vapid aging pretty boy--have had to pretend that Sarah Palin isn't a Republican icon, that George W. Bush and Ronald W. Reagan weren't celebrated for their doltish anti-intellectualism, that the modern Republican party isn't, in fact, a coalition of the wealthy, their paid spokesmen, and whatever Lowest Common Denomivoter they've caught in their nets over the past sixty years. For fear, of course, that speaking sense would cost you elections.
And what's it gotten you? You think Rick Perry's a bumbler, Newt Gingrich (another one-time Hero) has "baggage", and that Mitt needs a personality transplant. Your opponents think it's what you've been running, and nominating, and fucking defending since Nelson Rockefeller died of hummer-induced thrombosis. Who's right?
• Shorter Kevin M. Ryan, Indianapolis Star, Super Bowl Sunday:
"Now that the opportunity for sensationalistic headlines has passed, and prior to the actual arrest records becoming public record, I think we can all agree that the scare stories about International Child-Sex Slavery, Inc., and its annual descent upon the Super Bowl host city are wildly exaggerated, while noting that the effort may very well have prevented as many as two or three underage prostitutes from working the crowd."
Shorter Kevin M. Ryan, one week before last year's Super Bowl:
"Look out, Dallas! Thousands of enslaved underaged prostitutes are headed your way, just like they did in Miami last year!"
Evidently Mr. Big got away again this time. Quit tippin' him off, for fuck's sake.
• Shorter Charles Merkwürdigeliebe Krauthammer:
"I'm willing to be as disingenuous about theology as I am about politics. Surprised? Plus, Catholic hospitals, which no one with a smattering of familiarity about current events could ever imagine the Obama administration was going to cave on."
The question remains--will money in sufficient quantity actually win the general for a party you describe with total accuracy in every post you devise. Obama this year faces power--my guess is, the "October Surprise" will be a gradual rise in gasoline prices to a level at least above $7 by Labor Day. Will people who voted in number for Obama last time be able to produce enough ID to repeat the process? Will the people (like you and your readers) who actually pay attention to the--well, basically, OBVIOUS!--exist in enough number to even be acknowledged. Or are the "intellectual" class in such small number as to be an ignored minority in today's American Political Drama--a spectacle fronted by Citizens United.
ReplyDeleteI was *SO* disappointed that the first person to be caught with the new sex trafficking law was NOT a State Representative...
ReplyDeleteWould have been poetic...
"Plus, Catholic hospitals, which no one with a smattering of familiarity about current events could ever imagine the Obama administration was going to cave on."
ReplyDelete...that's gotta sting.