...the Wombat Party Response to the State of the Union Address. Party leadership agreed over a hasty supper of tuna salad sandwiches that it was way too long, used the word "feckless" way too frequently, and (above all) would not be telling the electorate anything they don't already know.
However, I have been authorized to note that of the binge-feast of politico-journalistic junk food my eyes consumed the morning after, no tidbit left as rancid an aftertaste as the sugar-coated Boston-Half-Baked Beans served up by Christopher Buckley. It makes sense, when you think about it, that one intellectually underwhelming son of a patrician icon should admire another (though Bush pere is perhaps less inherently iconic than W.F. Buckley's lockjawed viper act, occupying the Oval Office gets you at least some sort of icon status in this country).
Buckley Jr.'s glee at another one of Bush's pointless smirks about an official killing rings out like a dirty joke stage-whispered at a funeral: in a replay of his "ultimate punishment" bon mot, Bush played it Ice Ice Baby with regard to knocking off some Al Quaeda suspects with a missile: "Let's just say they will no longer pose a problem for the U.S. or its allies." I suppose I'll have to accept the notion that when Bush wants to talk tough he sounds like he's quoting a TV-movie version of one of Tom Clancy's imitators. But can't the rest of us have the good sense to look away with embarrasment, rather than citing and praising such inanity as a mark of steely wit? And if not, should we be hired by otherwise sensible editors? Michael Kinsley, I'm looking in your direction.
NOTE: When I posted this last night I referred rather slapdashedly to W.F. Buckley as a "WASP icon." Idiot that I am, I had forgotten the fact that he's a rather outspoken Catholic.
Posted by BT at January 29, 2003 11:18 PMDid you watch any of the post-game show? Did it not seem that the phrase "A Tale of Two Speeches" and some variation on "Anyone who wasn't convinced by that speech can't be convinced" had been worked out beforehand? Or are pundits, like mushrooms, all growing out of the same, giant, too-freaky-to-be-imagined underground fungal mass?
But I do want to make it official, based on what I heard -- I can't be convinced.
On the other hand, highest honors to Dub for discontinuing that Ronnie by way of Bill tic of introducing all the special guests in the crowd, each a parable for some important policy point. It eased the nausea, it really did.
Posted by: Scott on January 30, 2003 08:32 AMWell, I for one stand able to be convinced. Maybe some, whaddaya call it, evidence would do the trick. Better come soon though, because I think today is the last day I can join the National Guard.
Posted by: hackly_fracture on January 30, 2003 01:11 PMIn thinking further about my pundits-mushrooms analogy, I've decided that it breaks down.
Opposing bullshit flows.
Posted by: Scott on January 30, 2003 03:50 PMBT had a terrific further refutation of the mushroom analogy, which didn't even resort to fecal jokes, which he really ought to post here for the world to see.
Posted by: Scott on January 31, 2003 09:33 AMOur Guest Quizmaster is too kind; what I said was as follows --
Revision accepted. Although there is something fungal in pundrity. The problem with the analogy, perhaps, is that many mushrooms are delicious, though some are poisonous, and you need great expertise to tell them apart.
Whereas delicious pundits are extremely rare, poisonous ones are common (though far more are simply flavorless), and it requires no expertise to tell the difference, just a willingness to make the distinction.