Saturday commute lxvi: Waiting for the day to open

  It's bad enough,

  when the dough-

  nut shop stays

  closed until 11,

  but when the pa-

  perboy is late,

  it seldom helps

  to know what held

  him up.

                      Someone else is out

                      there, carving edges

                      off the surf, and you

                      have waited patiently

                      for news of where it is.

Where were you when we were at Putney, Mr Romney?

We sit and we watch, cycle after electoral cycle, as the Republican Party in the United States puts forward as a candidate for the highest executive position in the republic, a theorist steeped in defiant ignorance of that office’s origins and the purposes of free government, and whose passion, to leave whose legacy, is to expand that sphere of ignorance insofar as it must govern this nation as a new and degenerate principle of representative government. What the last Administration did to the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment, the greatest masterpiece of human rights ever inscribed as law, can probably never be undone. And they are far from shy of bold ideas. 

Now we have, in the assertion by Mitt Romney, that the public interest in his disclosure of his financial condition is “Small-Minded,” more than a revolting reduction of the public interest to the voyeurism of Women’s Wear Daily. We have an assertion of policy, itself, that the people have no right to an understanding of who may be holding their offices and formulating, implementing and enforcing laws governing their lives.

Never mind that the enunciation of this new policy comes at a time when the Republican Party has conducted nationwide warfare against voters of slight or no connection to permanent physical addresses in the jurisdictions where the laws will bind them, wherever they may happen to sleep - under highway overpasses, in dormitories of seasonal occupation, on park benches, in some friend’s utility closet. Never mind, that the laws this Party is so anxious to precipitate intend to sever these identical people, from the protections of their own government; and never mind, that they may call in Rupert Murdoch's rednecks as cheerleader of their rectitude.

Ignoring, then, the convergence of the apparent hauteur in Mr Romney’s disdain for an informed electorate with his propagation of ignorance, itself, as a screen for these policies, what is striking is just how miserably credible his incompetence is in making his claim. It was rejected in the Puritan Revolution of 1647, having been given full airing and expression in debates of Cromwell’s Army at Putney. You and I did not have a finer education than Romney’s, but possibly he was out forcibly shaving the head of a fellow student that day, when his classmates were gathering with their preceptor to learn about where the doctrine of suffrage comes from in Anglo-American representative government. If he knew, we could hope he would not so boldly, so thrillingly entertainingly, so enchantingly masculinely propose to stamp it out.

Now I think it could not be more urgently pertinent to any voter’s consideration of policy, and certainly not more relevant to the consideration policy is likely to extend to him, for him to possess information respecting the financial condition of the man who demands the confidence of his vote. Mr Romney adheres to scruples which exalt the getting of riches and the founding of society upon them. It is reasonable, it is fundamentally sane and necessary, to know how he thinks this should be done. But Mr Romney has gone further than anyone in Presidential history, to offer his wealth as the reason for his elevation to that office. Let him exhibit it.

The Paul Ryan Watch: Cutie sent to Coventry

Who can forget how the ideologues drove

McCain to flail with Sarah Palin, for the

refreshing spectacle of a courageous pol-

itician, speaking boldly? That overlay of

Capra claptrap on a shrewdly erotic repair

of the ticket has been recast for Romney,

as an endearing Proud Daddy/Eager Son duo

of Ayn Rand zombies of the Waste Land. It

was timely, in this first week of celebra-

tion of the GOP's latest fantasy, for our

Maureen to send the lower half of the tic-

ket to stand in the corner today: better

than the dock tomorrow.

Nationwide, the Paul Ryan Watch is on. How

the Republican Party develops the myth of

the tragic 16-year-old heir to his share

of one of the largest construction firms 

in the Midwest, and parlays his cousins'

ownership of a small town into a sinecure

in its Congressional office, thence to run

as an expert in the rotten borough's pho-

bias for seven 2-year terms, will be a

wonder to watch as every one of his cruel

bromides is dissolved in clarifying study,
against the tacky pec-scratch of Fox News.

Compliments to Maureen Dowd, nailing the 

mountebank cynicism of this nomination

right on time.

Endangered Tories lead the Summer List

We know, there can be nothing more

poignant than an English aristocrat

in his balancing act to sustain in-

calculable luxury through the quick

turnover of tourists at his estates. 

This Summer, Heywood Hill's List

presents the usual number of such

specimens, and two have landed here

with surprisingly redeeming charm

in self-revelation, intoning the

same theme of countryside husband-

ry. Hugh, Lord Cavendish of Furness

has presented a gorgeous tour of 

his famous gardens at Holker, in 

Cumbria, and the Duchess of Rutland

offers a spirited chronicle of the

shooting seasons at Belvoir Castle,

replete with heaps of avian carcasses.

What is interesting, staggeringly sumptuous scenery aside, is how aggressively political these titles are, in demanding sympathy for the right to lock up the place at any moment, and be alone in one's hereditary horizon. Infantility, oddly, is the leading argument: a childhood adoration of an Algerian oak is enough to warrant title to it in perpetuity. But should this fail, there is the custodial qualification, of watering the place for others to pay to see it in bloom. The daunting load of work involved in profiteering from this stewardship - never envisioned, until the 20th Century - is never far from recital.

From, however, that little bit of strain that binds us all, in the great human story of comforting the impregnable, it is only fair to take delight in the daunting glory of the other 23 hours of their day. In Lord Cavendish's 17 thousand arcadian acres, really no more than 25 represent a compelling recurring demand upon his curiosity, not counting the house, of course. At the rate at which Rutlands find themselves breeding grouse, the appalling density of their downpour cannot truly be said to represent a threatening depletion. And when it comes to that, the Duke of Buccleuch is not far to visit. These are not barren pantries. 

I very much enjoyed these two volumes, for to their credit there is no skimping in presenting the refinement of the world they document. That there is a market to support such glimpses of the exquisite, I should not have doubted (if I ever did), given the new candour of selfishness we observe in our long recession's penalties for expensive tastes. And nothing is more refreshing to an American, steeped in our plutocracy's drumbeat gospel that its tax immunities are "deficit neutral," to hear a Tory candidly exult in selling sleep-overs to expense accounts.

Hugh Cavendish

A Time to Plant

  Life and Gardening at Holker

Frances Lincoln, Ltd., 2012©

Emma, Duchess of Rutland

Shooting

  A Season of Discovery

Quiller, 2012©

We leave ideology for pathology, hook, line and stinker

Did I just see, for the second

election for national office in

the United States in a row, the

Republican Party poke me in the

eye by proposing, for 1st-in-

line-of-succession to the Pres-

idency, a figure of insultingly

vanishing experience, intellect,

judgment and dignity, in order

to inflame itself in broad day-

light with ideological red meat?

This is the most compulsive Par-

ty since the Khmer Rouge. The

transparent adolescent inversion,

the anguished horror of betrayal

in every stroke of social progress, 

are the naughty stink of Justice 
Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas; 
and now we shall see if this ter-
ribly unsecret abnormal psychology
can be voted into national office 
under any ventilation at all.

But had they the decency of a nano-
second's lapse of hypocrisy in the
announcement, to admit that they
wish to thrill their savage member-
ship by affirming, for the second
explicit time, Romney's embrace of
Ryan's fascist budget, before prom-
ising all general media in earshot,
that their nominee will put forth
his own, i.e., sane ideas? Do we
never tire of demagogues who don't
mean it?

So, again: is all that we are left in
the Ryan nomination a set of killer 
abs, acknowledged in every single
press release of the day, to go guy-
boast to guyboast against Joey Biden
in the Fall? But we already know, Joe
thinks he's handsome.

Francine du Plessix Gray on that interesting office

And who was it, who could have known

that into our time there would fall

an attention upon the conjugal engage-

ments of the Bourbon court, with Mrs.

Rodd still in print? Never wasting,

never wanting anxiously the by-ways

of the Petit Trianon, Francine du

Plessix Gray's publishers have given

to our August distractions her study

of Axel von Fersen, The Queen's Lov-

er, just in time for an afternoon's

browse at the University bookstore.

No less than that infallible atten-

dant upon genital activity in High

Places, Edmund White has waved his

knowing wand of favour over its roil-

ing covers, and Adam Gopnik (fast

contending for docent in all displays

Parisian) praises the text for dis-

covering a novel poignancy in the

admittedly familiar mechanics of the

amorous act. Who, then, could escape

the shop, uninformed?

We are not, in our reticent station,

about to compete with these sages in

the distinguishing of the historic

from the merely mundane tweak and par-

ry of furtive heterosexuality; when,

may it be remembered, the template

for registering their seismicity is

safely etched in the masterpieces of

Nancy Mitford, of the previous mid-

Century. Her Pompadour, Sun King and

Voltaire in Love all satisfy the

question of whether anyone were busy

in this way, with persuasive conjec-

tures on what this could have meant

for Statecraft and the lumens of the

Enlightenment, itself. 

Now, in Gray - a writer I have con-

sulted in the overhang of parents

(Them) and at The New York Review - 

we meet a refresher course in how 

turmoil of social change might en-

hance the morbidity of concupiscent 

escape. What's it like, in other

words, when all else is not going

according to plan? In this new nov-

el, I cannot raise expectations of 

Stendhal or Manzoni, Lampedusa or 

even Genet; but I think I can tes-

tify to its satisfying the fast-food 

connoisseurship of puberty, such as 

we can recall it from Catullus. Here, 

again, are all the marvels of the 

responsive features, lavishly ad-

dressed, here the exegesis of the 

immortal undercurrents' purgations, 

and mercifully without any bio-

graphical obligation. There will 

be no quiz, Class: it is presumed 

that you have mastered this material.

Yes, I do now understand that Marie

Antoinette's boyfriend lent his ar-

dour to the liberation of the Amer-

ican colonies, and was probably a

pretty good guy in his indulgence

of his own sovereign's hideous ho-

mosexual exploitations of his court.

How modern and accessible our dear

Marshall of Sweden does seem to us

in this light, as a fellow traveler

in the getting through of a time of

fiscal indiscipline. But the revolu-

tion in France cannot be said to

have been accelerated by his hap-

pening to have been in a consoling

place at an abject moment in a mon-

arch's day, and so one cannot as-

sign this text to anyone but lay-

about gossips in the prurience of

of our forbears, whose body count 

mounts well enough, already. Read-

ers, however, who accept a publish-

er's representations of historical

purpose in the product at hand, are

warned of acquiring a vapid tease.

Francine du Plessix Gray

The Queen's Lover

Penguin Press, 2012©