Toward the end of the The Paper Chase, Timothy Bottoms, first introduced as an endearingly naive True Believer in the righteousness and majesty of the Law, has devolved into a jumpy, hollow-eyed, self-centered grade-grubber, causing Lindsay Wagner to sadly observe, “They sucked all that Midwestern charm right out of you.” Well, it seems the same charm-removing Hoover has been applied to James Lileks, inhaling the stray crumbs of wit and likability, and the last remaining dust bunnies of his soul, because he’s started a desperate, down-to-the wire campaign blog that seems primarily intended to persuade independent and undecided voters that he’s a dick. In it, he discards the cockeyed nostalgia and kitschy enthusiasms that have been his stock in trade, and grimly arms himself for battle, donning the Girdle of Snide Innuendo and the Golden Truss of Premature Crankiness. In the latest post, he flays a centenarian nun for being senile enough to vote for Obama:
If you can’t trust a 106-year-old nun to be opposed pro-life, then all bets are off. Then again, it’s possible she doesn’t know which candidate takes a harder line on abortion, and which one would be inclined to vote “present” on a bill that allows doctors to perform third-trimester terminations “for the health, or mood, or overdue parking meter status, of the mother.”
You’ll note that Lileks, though driven into a state of Herculean Irk, is still canny enough to borrow McCain’s winning tactic of treating maternal health issues to an air quote-intensive bombardment of sarcasm.
Nuns! Explains this fellow, too: abortion is his main issue, but he can’t decide whether to vote for the guy who said life begins at conception, or the one who said the question is above his pay grade. You could blame the media for not making the distinction clear, but really, it’s not that hard to find out the deets. Some people just have a hard time figuring things out. There are people out there who have no problem with the whole Bill Ayers thing, because they heard from a friend that John McCain spent five years living with some Communists. Really! In a hotel and everything.
You can understand his frustration. McCain’s sole hope depends upon “low information voters,” like the one Mary wrote about below. So it’s got to be galling to find yourself dealing with people whose capacity for political information is so low, they can’t even manage to absorb the correct lies!
There aren’t a great many more posts in Lileks’ Screedblog, but what’s there is cherce, including dark rumblings about the crypto-Bolshevism of Disney, and a seething rant about tax policy, during which he works himself into such a tizzy that he actually turns into Eros of Plan 9 From Outer Space (“Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!“) So if you’re undecided about how to vote today, drop by and enjoy the reasoned discourse from Minnesota’s Unhappy Warrior.
Posted by scott on November 4th, 2008
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