Now that the Gipper's in the grave and we're all sick of the subject: he was a mediocre-to-bad1 President who did not end the cold war or break the back of inflation but did cause a lot of suffering in the world, particularly in Central America. Some pretty good negative obits are Ted Rall's, Greg Palast's (scroll down to June 6), and Alexander Cockburn's. American politics became surreal in 1980 once people decided to hire a movie actor as President. Wasn't that when the Athenian democracy went into decline, when they started electing actors? The folks writing his scripts weren't surrealists, though: they had a very straightforward agenda of turning the clock back to some perceived Eisenhower '50s while plunging their hands deeply into the till. David Lynch nailed the era in Blue Velvet--behind the facade of old Gus waving from his red fire truck lurked the sexually depraved, oxygen-huffing criminal. Reagan's men had to wait 12 years before they found another wax dummy Average Americans could fall for--they almost succeeded in recreating what they had in the '80s, except Frank Booth keeps popping up on people's television screens. Reagan was a much better animatronic doll than George Junior.
1. Mediocre in that we're all still alive.
So the funeral is finished? I was really worried that it was going to last another 6 months. Christopher Hitchens also wrote a scathing obit in Slate last week. (the Hitchens I used to admire made a brief re-appearance in that text)
On one of the entertainment tabloid TV shows (yup, I watch them all) they aired a clip of an soldier, who had lost both his hands in Iraq, saluting the coffin. In an interview afterwards, he said that he was just in among the crowd of mourners and the gesture was on impulse. In every clip of this soldier, one of the mourners who was always beside him was Paul Wolfowitz.
Imagine the instructions given to a white house aid to find a telegenic Iraq War vet who won't strangle Wolfowitz, and to be extra safe, find one who can't strangle Wolfowitz. (And that's because we know the likes of you, Tom, for instance, will never find yourself casually in the company of any administration officials without a complete vetting by several levels of government intelligence organizations)
Depends on which administration! The country hasn't always been as scary as it is now. But yeah, I couldn't watch all the Reagan stuff on TV. Photo-ops with vets and the Men Who Maimed Them sounds more horrible than I could imagine.
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Now that the Gipper's in the grave and we're all sick of the subject: he was a mediocre-to-bad1 President who did not end the cold war or break the back of inflation but did cause a lot of suffering in the world, particularly in Central America. Some pretty good negative obits are Ted Rall's, Greg Palast's (scroll down to June 6), and Alexander Cockburn's. American politics became surreal in 1980 once people decided to hire a movie actor as President. Wasn't that when the Athenian democracy went into decline, when they started electing actors? The folks writing his scripts weren't surrealists, though: they had a very straightforward agenda of turning the clock back to some perceived Eisenhower '50s while plunging their hands deeply into the till. David Lynch nailed the era in Blue Velvet--behind the facade of old Gus waving from his red fire truck lurked the sexually depraved, oxygen-huffing criminal. Reagan's men had to wait 12 years before they found another wax dummy Average Americans could fall for--they almost succeeded in recreating what they had in the '80s, except Frank Booth keeps popping up on people's television screens. Reagan was a much better animatronic doll than George Junior.
1. Mediocre in that we're all still alive.
- tom moody 6-12-2004 8:03 pm
So the funeral is finished? I was really worried that it was going to last another 6 months. Christopher Hitchens also wrote a scathing obit in Slate last week. (the Hitchens I used to admire made a brief re-appearance in that text)
On one of the entertainment tabloid TV shows (yup, I watch them all) they aired a clip of an soldier, who had lost both his hands in Iraq, saluting the coffin. In an interview afterwards, he said that he was just in among the crowd of mourners and the gesture was on impulse. In every clip of this soldier, one of the mourners who was always beside him was Paul Wolfowitz.
Imagine the instructions given to a white house aid to find a telegenic Iraq War vet who won't strangle Wolfowitz, and to be extra safe, find one who can't strangle Wolfowitz. (And that's because we know the likes of you, Tom, for instance, will never find yourself casually in the company of any administration officials without a complete vetting by several levels of government intelligence organizations)
- LM (guest) 6-12-2004 11:46 pm
Depends on which administration! The country hasn't always been as scary as it is now. But yeah, I couldn't watch all the Reagan stuff on TV. Photo-ops with vets and the Men Who Maimed Them sounds more horrible than I could imagine.
- tom moody 6-13-2004 1:16 am