YOUR CONDUCTOR THIS EVENING IS....
John McCain. The train: The Doubletalk Express. As we all know, the trains don't always run on time, especially, in and around New York City, and we saw a forceful reminder of this axiom this past weekend when Senator McCaiin (R-Mealymouth) took his train in for a spin to Madison Square Garden, to deliver a speech to the graduates of The New School.
McCain is no stranger to the Garden. He spoke there, why, just short of two years ago, at that hatefest (oops, Republicans, I meant to say "lovefest") known as the Republican National Convention. I didn't watch a single minute of this convention ("empty your head of all violent thoughts," Captain Picard once told his crew, when trying to defeat an enemy that fed off of hate), but I read the text of McCain's speech.
He, as the self-proclaimed arbiter of which candidate or group campaigning on that candidate's behalf could say what during that election (note that he became this arbiter AFTER he wrote legislation that, to some degree, silenced the speech that people other than him could utter about candidates during an election), went on about how important winning the "war in Iraq" was, and - why this was done, I cannot say, took a swipe at Michael Moore - of all people - calling him "disingenuous." Well, at least we knew that McCain took the election seriously, just as he pretended to take the Senate as an institution seriously by erupting at Barack Obama when Obama dared to suggest that Democrats had the right to introduce their own "ethics legislation."
While the Doubletalk Express was stopped in MSG THIS time, however, the audience was not very friendly. New School, as McCain knew, has an active (and perhaps actively insufferable, to a degree) student body. McCain, however, was undeterred from giving the same stump speech to the New School crowd that he had just given to Jerry Falwell's Anti-Liberty University.
Politicians of McCain's ilk claim to wonder why people my age do not want to get involved in politics. McCain, as an initial matter, cannot view people my age with anything but contempt. 18-30 year-olds, after all, were the only group to vote for Kerry in the last election, and they did so by a comfortable margin.
But the following passage from his speech really does make one wonder just how much he hates that which is, after all, still a part of him:
“When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me, and, consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of my insights. I had opinions on everything, and I was always right. I loved to argue, and I could become understandably belligerent with people who lacked the grace and intelligence to agree with me. With my superior qualities so obvious, it was an intolerable hardship to have to suffer fools gladly. So I rarely did. All their resistance to my brilliantly conceived and cogently argued views proved was that they possessed an inferior intellect and a weaker character than God had blessed me with, and I felt it was my clear duty to so inform them. It’s a pity that there wasn’t a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium.”
This passage's deployment in the speech was such that McCain clearly intended to suggest that the graduating students acted just as he did when he was a young man.
Some say that people my age don't get involved in politics because politicians are "out of touch," are "corrupt," and so forth. I don't think people my age have a problem with being corrupt and out of touch. But some - perhaps enough to account for nationwide political detachment - DO have a problem with politicians who hate their guts. After all, we subconsciously, when thinking about whether to adopt a profession, project mentally what we would be like in that profession based upon what we think of those who are already in it. And, it seems, not too many people (even those who already are well on their way to becoming same) WANT to become hateful, bitter old politicians. Where's the money and power in that?
McCain is no stranger to the Garden. He spoke there, why, just short of two years ago, at that hatefest (oops, Republicans, I meant to say "lovefest") known as the Republican National Convention. I didn't watch a single minute of this convention ("empty your head of all violent thoughts," Captain Picard once told his crew, when trying to defeat an enemy that fed off of hate), but I read the text of McCain's speech.
He, as the self-proclaimed arbiter of which candidate or group campaigning on that candidate's behalf could say what during that election (note that he became this arbiter AFTER he wrote legislation that, to some degree, silenced the speech that people other than him could utter about candidates during an election), went on about how important winning the "war in Iraq" was, and - why this was done, I cannot say, took a swipe at Michael Moore - of all people - calling him "disingenuous." Well, at least we knew that McCain took the election seriously, just as he pretended to take the Senate as an institution seriously by erupting at Barack Obama when Obama dared to suggest that Democrats had the right to introduce their own "ethics legislation."
While the Doubletalk Express was stopped in MSG THIS time, however, the audience was not very friendly. New School, as McCain knew, has an active (and perhaps actively insufferable, to a degree) student body. McCain, however, was undeterred from giving the same stump speech to the New School crowd that he had just given to Jerry Falwell's Anti-Liberty University.
Politicians of McCain's ilk claim to wonder why people my age do not want to get involved in politics. McCain, as an initial matter, cannot view people my age with anything but contempt. 18-30 year-olds, after all, were the only group to vote for Kerry in the last election, and they did so by a comfortable margin.
But the following passage from his speech really does make one wonder just how much he hates that which is, after all, still a part of him:
“When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. I believed that to be especially true with many of my elders, people whose only accomplishment, as far as I could tell, was that they had been born before me, and, consequently, had suffered some number of years deprived of my insights. I had opinions on everything, and I was always right. I loved to argue, and I could become understandably belligerent with people who lacked the grace and intelligence to agree with me. With my superior qualities so obvious, it was an intolerable hardship to have to suffer fools gladly. So I rarely did. All their resistance to my brilliantly conceived and cogently argued views proved was that they possessed an inferior intellect and a weaker character than God had blessed me with, and I felt it was my clear duty to so inform them. It’s a pity that there wasn’t a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium.”
This passage's deployment in the speech was such that McCain clearly intended to suggest that the graduating students acted just as he did when he was a young man.
Some say that people my age don't get involved in politics because politicians are "out of touch," are "corrupt," and so forth. I don't think people my age have a problem with being corrupt and out of touch. But some - perhaps enough to account for nationwide political detachment - DO have a problem with politicians who hate their guts. After all, we subconsciously, when thinking about whether to adopt a profession, project mentally what we would be like in that profession based upon what we think of those who are already in it. And, it seems, not too many people (even those who already are well on their way to becoming same) WANT to become hateful, bitter old politicians. Where's the money and power in that?
posted by EnterCenter at 8:38 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home