Saturday, September 20, 2008
THE EMERGING REPUBLICAN MINORITY. The Ole Perfesser directs us to the long-disregarded maniac Bill Whittle at National Review:When I first got to college, back in the last few weeks of the Seventies, I finally got a chance to see an ordinary game of Dungeons and Dragons. My immediate inclination was to play as a Paladin... Normal people will be tempted stop right there, but we'll follow a little while:I sit with others in darkened rooms, watching films like Redacted, Stop-Loss, and In the Valley of Elah, and see our brave young soldiers depicted as murderers, rapists, broken psychotics or ignorant dupes -- visions foisted upon me by bitter and isolated millionaires such as Brian de Palma and Paul Haggis and all the rest. Foisted? Good God, man, you have free will! Or are you a captive of the Hollywood smear machine? Blink twice for yes!No wonder they must be destroyed. Because -- Sarah Palin especially -- presents a mortal threat to these people who have determined over cocktails who the next President should be and who now clearly mean to grind into metal shards the transaxle of their credibility in order to get the result they must have... Longtime followers of Whittle's insanity may wonder: where's this popular rightwing buffoon been the past year? Last we paid attention, he and his friends were building as of May 2007 a shining city on a hill:I believe -- utterly -- that this ability for the common person to communicate with other common people, this internet, will allow us to end-run the cycle of civilization. I believe it in my bones.
My friends, Western Civilization is not on its last legs.
Western Civilization is going to the stars. Count on it...
This City-State of Virtue we desire does not exist.
Let’s build one. And so Whittle did, at least in his all-powerful mind. Comparing his new "City-State" to Disneyland, Whittle declared:What we are trying to do right now is to get a functional version of Ejectia! up and running as soon as possible. Whatever we have in place on Day One will simply be a starting point for the improvements we are planning on Day Two. Ejectia! -- like every city -- will be built on the foundations of what it was yesterday. It will never be finished. Then Whittle started publishing pictures of his new Jerusalem:
Whittle then wrote:Above are some early test renderings I have done to play with some of the overall look of the place. Now here's something interesting: everyone views this City-State differently. Some people would like it to be a collection of Greek buildings in a verdant valley. Some want it on a tropical isle. Some want a Rivendell-esque hidden valley surrounded by waterfalls, and some people even want a medieval village in the middle of a forest. That was in June 2007. In July Whittle wrote:The hardcover books are finally -- FINALLY -- dropping into the print queue. They should begin shipping in three to four days... Finally, there has been some speculation -- and I have received a few phone calls -- concerning my reaction to the recent explosion up at the Mojave... I grieve for the loss of friends and family members and for the irreparable hole they have left behind them. But at the same time, I am comforted and encouraged by two points that I think bear mentioning in this or any other case where people die doing the one thing they love more than anything else in the world. Thence Whittle went off the grid till November, at which point he told his followers: So while I am sure by this point it comes as a surprise to no one but myself, I have reluctantly put aside any hope of building Ejectia until my financial status changes dramatically, at which point I will no longer care about what it costs. Since then he has only written a few pages of gibberish before being picked up by the nation's most prominent conservative magazine as a suitable spokesman for the McCain campaign.
I frequently tell you folks that our opponents are totally insane, but rarely does one of them leave so egregious a pixel trail of his psychosis. That the National Review would avail such a crackpot for its purposes is of course no surprise at all.
12:13 AM by roy edroso
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Thursday, September 18, 2008
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. The stark unreality of this campaign is starting to get to me.
An alleged member of anti-Scientology group has hacked Sarah Palin's email, and conservatives blame Obama supporters.
At National Review Mark Hemingway cites a report quoting McCain as saying he didn't anticipate the subprime mortgage mess -- and then asserts that he did, too, and says the reporter should have "googled a little harder" to help McCain look better than he portrayed himself.
Palin gives a content-free answer to a question her handlers inadvertently allowed her to answer about AIG, and Hemingway proclaims, "Palin Gets the Financial Crisis," and explains why she's "exactly right" in a paragraph longer than her answer. It's like a scene out of Being There.
The United States is a shuddering wreck, and the top conservative spiritual advisor complains that a black guy disrespected the Star-Spangled Banner, the top conservative mystic resurrects an old, incomprehensible slur on Obama, the top conservative economic blogger calls commenters who disagree with her idiots, then admits she doesn't know what's going on, and the Ole Perfesser tells readers that the economy isn't worth worrying about, pay attention to the 527 commercials.
I thought five-plus years of covering this kind of gibberish had inured me to it, but here it is only September of a Presidential election year and every time I step even into the foot-washing pool of the political scene I feel as if I have been fatally poisoned. The degeneracy of political discourse in the internet age has been my subject, but I feel as if it is getting away from me, screaming beyond my capacity to keep up. Is it really so much worse than it has been, or am I getting soft?
12:28 AM by roy edroso
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Monday, September 15, 2008
IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE. Rich Lowry thinks the current financial collapse makes a good time for McCain to start talking about the economy. I do hope to see that; it's been a while since I heard the words "Keating Five" mentioned in connection with his name.
Republican operatives are already preemptively defending against such a strategy with the hot news that Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made contributions to Democrats. Of course, those contributions were legal.
11:43 AM by roy edroso
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ANOTHER VOICE COLUMN and once again Sarah Palin is the subject, proving I am part of the problem, not the solution. Time will tell whether our nation's imminent financial collapse can distract mainstream media operatives such as myself from these circuses. Jonah Goldberg says "the tectonic plates are definitely rumbling," but he is talking about the Glorious Republican Revolution, or perhaps his colon, not the rude shaking the markets are about to deliver to folks who think this election is about lipstick and Charlie Gibson. Of course, in the last ditch they could just promote Megan McArdle to CNBC anchor, and have McCain retire for health reasons and consent to be replaced on the ticket by a cute puppy.
6:03 AM by roy edroso
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