Dear Caroline,Moore maunders on in this vein, mingling gross flattery with maudlin sentimentality, for more than a thousand unbearable words.We've never met, so I hope you don't find this letter too presumptuous or inappropriate.... Barack Obama selected you to head up his search for a vice presidential candidate.... The media is reporting that Senator Obama has narrowed his alternatives to three men: Joe Biden, Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine. They're all decent fellows, but they are far from the core of what the Obama campaign has been about: Change. Real change....
What Obama needs is a vice presidential candidate who is NOT a professional politician, but someone who is well-known and beloved by people across the political spectrum; someone who, like Obama, spoke out against the war; someone who has a good and generous heart, who will be cheered by the rest of the world; someone whom we've known and loved and admired all our lives and who has dedicated her life to public service and to the greater good for all.
That person, Caroline, is you.
I cannot think of a more winning ticket than one that reads: "OBAMA-KENNEDY."
Now I don't know any harm of Caroline Kennedy. But this fantasy of Moore's certainly does reveal the vulgar, cartoonish infantilism of the liberal imagination -- a mental world where wishing can make it so, and magic really works. Moore observes in passing that Caroline's father JFK "died because he wanted to serve his country" -- a fantasy construct fully equal to Moore's preposterous obiter dictum that "the core of the Obama campaign" was "Change. Real Change."
Moore, it seems, shares old Reagan's view that "facts are stupid things."
Comments (13)
Second paragraph had me thinking Moore was about to nominate himself.
Posted by Michael Dawson | August 20, 2008 4:18 PM
Posted on August 20, 2008 16:18
I agree. Mr Moore has a way of confusing the pronouns "you" and "me".
Michael's next production will be about how he realized he is The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
What's he gonna do now that Nobama has jettisoned Wes Clarke?
Posted by ddjango | August 21, 2008 8:27 PM
Posted on August 21, 2008 20:27
i submit for you approval
the m. moore problematique
deserves a terrible swift sword
indeed for this here bouquet
of
" maudlin sentimentality"
and
"vulgar, cartoonish infantilism "
may are the works of this moore persona
that deserve no less
and yet...i submit for you dis-approval
him haff other... partial selves
and
if it were my sole call
i'd stay the commisars hand
to call him
utterly and without qualification .... "egregious "
seems ....but hey i like fat white
pizza and pop type slobs ......
of a pinkish hue
i see one in dah mirror
when ever i bother to look
Posted by op | August 22, 2008 8:22 PM
Posted on August 22, 2008 20:22
Semi serious question: WTF has Miss Caroline ever done in her life?
I agree with op-san that MM has a major likable streak and some pretty cool works.
But semi-seriously, what's he smokin' on this one?
Posted by Michael Dawson | August 23, 2008 1:53 AM
Posted on August 23, 2008 01:53
Aw, well, game over now. Biden. Nuff said.
Next topic: Killary in 2012? Any chance of a mass leftward DP exodus now?
Posted by Michael Dawson | August 23, 2008 12:50 PM
Posted on August 23, 2008 12:50
Keep dreaming, Dawson. I just got back from a liberal stronghold where a regular immediately demonstrated amnesia on a grand scale by burbling with joy about Biden's "electability."
[Yawn]
Posted by ms_xeno | August 23, 2008 1:13 PM
Posted on August 23, 2008 13:13
Well, I'll be goddamned. Obombirana's picked The Guy Who Looks Like He Could Play A Senator On The West Wing.
Caught a few seconds this afternoon of a guy from Time who looked like he could play a shoe salesman in a movie talking about "Blowhard" Biden's "national security" creds. Truly, truly amazing.
Watching this season's DP flameout could be even more fun than watching old Challenger footage as I don't have to give a shit that there's a crew aboard this one. They're getting what they deserve.
Hah, "electability". I mean, shit, man; Adolf Hitler was friggin' electable.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | August 23, 2008 2:26 PM
Posted on August 23, 2008 14:26
So if Biden is so "electable", then why hasn't he ever been...um...elected? Is the concept of electability counter-intuitively tied to seeking the Democratic nomination for president and not getting it?
Posted by Nullifidian | August 23, 2008 4:56 PM
Posted on August 23, 2008 16:56
Ms. X, I'm not under any illusions about what the rank-and-defiled will say until McCain wins. But do you think they'll buy the next phase -- the coming Klintonoid interpretation that, see, we told you Obama was too left and too unconventional?
Posted by Michael Dawson | August 24, 2008 12:18 AM
Posted on August 24, 2008 00:18
Would somebody please rid us of the word "vet" used as a verb? It's almost as odious as the Dembots, who seem to be its main pushers...
Posted by Michael Dawson | August 24, 2008 12:50 PM
Posted on August 24, 2008 12:50
Michael, I'm convinced these people can and will buy anything, after a thousand and one large an small interactions with them online and IRL, too.
Flugennock is on the right track. They'd vote for Hitler's corpse if a Dem "leader" ordered them to. Also, they'd dig it up at their own expense and then thank the Democrats for the privilege of doing so. Then they'd offer to pay an extra fee on top of whatever the party machine was already asking for. Hell, they'd be cuffing and kicking each other for the chance to be first into the newly re-opened grave !
Personally I still think that Goldwater would make for a better re-animated Democrat, but who ever listens to me.
Posted by ms_xeno | August 24, 2008 2:00 PM
Posted on August 24, 2008 14:00
Michael, I'm convinced these people can and will buy anything, after a thousand and one large an small interactions with them online and IRL, too.
Flugennock is on the right track. They'd vote for Hitler's corpse if a Dem "leader" ordered them to. Also, they'd dig it up at their own expense and then thank the Democrats for the privilege of doing so. Then they'd offer to pay an extra fee on top of whatever the party machine was already asking for. Hell, they'd be cuffing and kicking each other for the chance to be first into the newly re-opened grave !
Personally I still think that Goldwater would make for a better re-animated Democrat, but who ever listens to me ?
Posted by ms_xeno | August 24, 2008 2:01 PM
Posted on August 24, 2008 14:01
ms_xeno:
That's true of way too many of us, but not all of us. Obama's capitulation on the FISA bill (also known colloquially as "the spy bill") signalled to me that the Democratic Party of FDR is dead and gone. Not that FDR was any sort of ideal apotheosis of progressiveness, but his era was probably when the Democratic Party was at its best. So these days, I may occasionally pour myself a glass of the Kool-Aid when I don't feel like arguing with the still-faithful, but I will certainly dump it into the nearest convenient flower-pot when nobody is looking instead of actually drinking it. :-)
I really think part of the problem is that the Democrats and the Republicans are more official public insitutions than they are political parties in the old-fashioned sense. If I could scrape together $500 and enough signatures, I could run as either a Republican or a Democrat, and it's that way by law. A European political party would never be subject to such a requirement. Making the D's and the R's into effective public institutions was supposed to make the whole process more open, but it obviously had the effect of making the two parties official creatures of the establishment that would never again be able to be anything else.
Posted by Loveandlight | August 27, 2008 1:45 PM
Posted on August 27, 2008 13:45