Wednesday, October 10, 2012

A new electoral day



Our prince of panic in the post-
debate commentary in the Presid-
ential campaign, Andrew Sullivan
of the Oxford Union and The Daily
Beast, has declared not merely
the incumbent's betrayal of his
noble cause, but the death of it
because of his unique position.

Andrew has always needed to be
the firstest with the mostest, 
and this has sometimes been sal-
utary, as in his demand for mar-
ital equality, and silly, as in 
his announcement of the end of
AIDS. We shall have to take un-
der history's advisement, what
combination of uses his present
panic might serve; but it seems
fair to look elsewhere, for vic-
tory. 

Plainly, we are in the midst of
a new battlefield, calling - it
seems, to any rational observer -
for a new battle plan. The chal-
lenger is no longer occupying the
ground of the callow liar, the 
lecher of mammon, and the shrill
shill of the sanctimonious Right.
Very well. Is there time to defeat
him as the simple assurance that
he is, of greater and greater ex-
tremes of middle-class impoverish-
ment and the betrayal of civil 
liberties?



It was intellectually arrogant
to mock the new darling of the
soccer moms, for harrowing Big
Bird; and intellectual arrogance
is the infamous residual resort of
the President's Party since (bless
his heart) Adlai Stevenson limned
modesty in lust, against a smiling
warlord of Main Street. The Presi-
dent, should he care to rejoin the
battle, needs to accept it in its
new terms. Simply put, his is the
securest path to brighter financial
prospects for the ninety-nine per
cent: the path of John F. Kennedy,
of a little inflation for a lot of
stimulation. To a culture where
nothing but slights are remembered,
this can sound positively thrilling.
But it takes the blind faith of Rand-
ian oppression and stands it on its
head: if it is true that an imbalance
in revenue can cure the deficit by
expanding the economy, let's go for
it, by the path we know will work.

We'll always have Dukakis. Why not
a happy warrior, for fairness' sake?

















4 comments:

  1. D'you think?

    :)

    Thanks for keeping our perspective!

    ReplyDelete
  2. As a UK viewer who's following the debates, I'd like to see the movie, "OBAMA 2" - which I hope will come out in November. Otherwise you'll all start having too many wives to contemplate. (Global (population) warming and all that.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. perils of self-government: where will it end, &c ..

      Delete