Wednesday, August 31st, 2006

Let The Games Begin
Though they've been playing for a few months already. The day after labor day is the day political campaigning starts in earnest, so now watch as the TVs are flooded with ads telling you how when you make your choice this November, you really don't have a choice. The Republicans are going to tell you that you have to vote GoP or the country will be invaded by terrorists and we'll all be eating falafel by Sunday (God's holy day, you know). They've even decided to drop the much-flouted immigration issue, since they don’t all agree on it right now. And Democrats will tell you that you can't vote GoP because we need a (regime) change and we need to get rid of the Rummy and possible even impeach Bush. Like the every increasing vibrations of a palsy patient, the two parties are going to back and forth on Iraq until they vibrate so fast they don't seem to move at all, and the final message will be nothing else except terror: elephants will say we fight terror by staying in Iraq, and donkeys will say we fight terror by leaving Iraq. And everything else that government collects your trillions for will be ignored. Terrorists do what they do not to effect the ones who die, but the effect the ones who survive. So you tell me if they've won or not.

Talking Right
Last week I failed to mention having finally finished Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show by Geoffrey Nunberg. This is a very dense book, (which is not a bad thing) delving deep into the history and functionality of the right's domination of political language for the last 100 years or so. The gist of it all is that the left can't escape the language of the right, and are forced to use it in their own speeches. Nor is it simply a case of coming up with new catchy slogans and phrases. The right succeeds with changing "estate tax" to "death tax" not just because they've got great marketing guys on their side, but because they possess the narrative to back up everything they say. Propoganda, you will recall, is not just saying "what they did" but saying "what they do" an essential difference that informs everything that the public talks about. And in the end, that's sNunberg's lesson: the left needs to get a message, not unlike the way Clinton was able to, and recapture the spirit of American politics.

Parliament of Whores
Another book by P.J. O'Rourke, which sort of fits into my goal of reading more things by conservatives than not. But only barely, because O'Rourke is what Coulter and Hannity think they are, in much the same way that David Blaine thinks he'd Houdini. Parliament of Whores was written in 1991, and so is out of date in some respects, though the forward to the 2003 edition by Andrew Ferguson spins some perspective that brings the subject up-to-date, if only for the purpose of comparing now to then. It's interesting, in that when the book came out 1991 a Bush was in office and we where on the brink of war in the Middle East, and lo, look where where are today. (I'll have to go find books or commentaries written by PJ from and about the Clinton years).

As Eat The Rich was O'Rourke trying to figure out economics, Parliament is PJ gonzo-investigating government. He spends some time at the various levels, watching the House function, investigating the budget, and I think importantly, looking into local politics as well. He takes a gander at crime, poverty, special interest groups, the S&L scandal. His final analysis is not all surprising. He is, after all, a freelance writer, appearing often in Rolling Stone, so he sees that government is almost criminally dull. And he's a conservative, so he finds government is simply criminal.

Of course whatever O'Rourke lacks in perspective (he actually doesn't-- he's one of the few objective political writers I've read) he makes up for, in spades, with wit and writing acumen. I think one of the worse crimes a passionate writer can commit is not knowing when to put the pen down, start editing, and get the damn thing between carboard covers. O'Rourke manages to give us his perspective, analysis, make it fun to read, and do it all in as much time as anyone would want to spend reading about the intestines of government digestion. So 14 years later, the book is still worth reading.

Hannity: A Candidate for Terrorist Profiling
Heard a soundbite last week of pundit Sean Hannity saying that there are thing worth fighting and dieing for, one of those things is making sure Nancy Pelosi does not become Speaker of the House. Now we all know that there isn't really an actual "fight" when congresspersons run for office; we just say "fight" as a metaphor for the conflict between more than one person seeking a single seat. So in that sense, we can find no fault with what Hannity is saying when he uses the word "fight." But how can we extend the metaphor when he uses the word "die"?

Nancy is the democratic leader in the House and will take the Speaker position if, as more and more analysts are coming to believe, the Democrats take the House majority this November. Does Hannity think it is worth dieing to keep Democrats from winning those seats, or does he want Nancy Pelosi, specifically, to be done away with?

And even more telling: is Sean, too, for all his bully-bravado, scared about Republicans' abilities this November? Is he finally pulling his head out of his ass long enough to see the writing on the wall? And is he terrified of Nancy becoming speaker because, when Bush and Cheney finally get impeached for war crimes, that would make Pelosi President? Is Sean so certain about this possibility he's ready to use the language of terrorists to arouse his declining supporters into fatal action?