The Pitch
Posted on:: September 19th, 2004
I got a msg from the Bush campaign (I’m a member of GOP TeamLeader) touting an HBO movie, 9 Innings from Ground Zero. The msg links to a clip about Bush throwing out the first pitch. In it, W lets us know the pressure on him not to “bounce” it.
I can see why the Republicans are circulating it. It’s a good piece of tape, in a patriotic-cum-Riefenstahl sense. And, on the other hand, it’s maybe the most absurd reduction of a serious issue I have ever seen.
You want to see American political cynicism at its worst? This is it: The drama of the President throwing out the first pitch.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
The Democrats just need to compete. Use your influence as credentialled DNC blogger to get the Kerry campaign to produce and release “The Man from Nantucket: Windsurfing at Brandt Point”. Or maybe: “John Edwards: Courtroom Action Hero”.
Actually, this Bush video presents Democrats with an incredible opportunity. Since he is wrapping himself up in baseball, maybe the Dems could question whether he was ever actually a part owner of the Rangers. A warning for you though… W’s e-mails from that era probably did not have 24-bit color 2400×1600 JPEG attachments of him popping Viagra with Raphael Palmiero.
When democrats like John Kerry try to run to the right of Bush on the military and issues like Iraq everything has basically gone to the dogs. After 50 years of the greek gift known a television, what would you expect our politics to look like? People don’t fucking read anymore. We’re a bunch of profoundly ignorant, profoundly dangerous clowns (everyone should look up the etomology of the word “clown”). Too bad John Brown is dead. Don’t suppose there’s much that even he could do now anyway.
Brad, even though you joke, there’s more to what you’ve written in your post than you may realize. Politics nowadays is about exploiting a fundamental human weakness. I will not take pains here to describe it, except to say that it is a suseptibility to hardcore bullshit. Riefenstahl had here finger on it. Madison ave. understands it well, and Bush and the people running his campaign know how to serve up a Texas-sized serving of it every time they open their mouths. It’s not nice to take advantage of folks when they’re sleep walking, but hey, it works. Should Kerry pile on? Brad, if we become you wouldn’t any victory for our side be a phyrrhic one? You know, pointless victory because we will have ditched everything we stand for to acheive victory. Nah, I’d rather lose. Sometimes the wisest course is to stand on principal and wait for the other side to collapse under the weight of its own hubris.
Brad, I sense this sort of hubris in you. Clearly an articulate, intelligent person, sensing a Republican victory you seem to enjoy taunting this blogs readership like a cat toying with a mouse before the kill. As Bush continues his ascent in the polls the more exquisite is your pleasure because you are so keenly aware of how excruciating this is to the rest of us. Do killers ever object to the protestations, to the furious struggle of their victims? Quite to the contrary! That is the very thing that makes it worth doing. Oh the banality of evil. If you were a bit more original, perhaps I would take on some of your arguments, point by point. I know you have your needs, and I understand your impulses, while utterly repulsive, as being perfectly natural. I could not be a liberal and believe otherwise. But right now I’m not in a charitable mood. If we progressives were to say, “Congratulations, we concede, you win”, would that make you feel victorious? Just remember as W goes, so goes the conservative movement. After four more years I imagine that it will become increasingly difficult to blame liberals for all of this countrie’s deep, deep problems. And guess what? We’re not going anywhere, but you and your fellow Republicans will have bet everything on W. You comfortable with that? If in four years things are in a shambles, then what? Do you really think there is going to be any positive resolution to the mess in Iraq? Or do you believe as W wants us to believe that peace and democracy are soon going to flourish in the Middle East? You seem far too intelligent. Any clear thinking conservative should be praying for a Kerry win. The coming Republican-created mess is the only silver lining, if you could call it that, that I see in a Kerry defeat in November. If Kerry wins, on the other hand, guess who gets stuck with the blame? You live another day.
Reality always catches up with Triumph of the Will one way or the other. Who knows, as things begin to fall apart, maybe even the Democratic leadership will get the message.
Enjoy your victory while it lasts.
Oh Daniel…
The only thing that makes this the slightest bit humorous is listening to the hatred and bile coming from partisan Democrats this time aorund. It’s just like 1996 with right-wingers. To hear them then, you would have thought that Clinton was getting blow jobs from interns less than half his age in the Oval Office or something.
Bush is retarded. Bush was a deserter. BTW, Clinton was a desserter too — and it recently caught up with him. Karl Rove is the second coming of Gary Kasparov, except he and Karen Hughes are really friggin evil people. Iraq is Vietnam. This is the worst economy since we had to walk to school, uphill, in the snow, both ways.
Basically, for the next 6 weeks, Dems are paying for sucking up to Michael Moore. This is what you wanted, so this is what you get :-). Republicans survived 8 years of Clinton and only payed for it with 9/11. I’m sure you’ll fare at least as well after 8 years of Bush.
Daniel, if you look over the the recent presidents, modern conservatism in the White House started with Carter. Since then, we’ve had nigh on a generation of right-wing governance, but no hint that any conservative yet finds it difficult to blame liberals for this country’s problems. If Bush wins, don’t expect much change in that department.
You make a good point. Despite controlling all branches of government, I’m sure they’ll find a way to try to place the blame for the failures on the liberal bogey man. I’m just not sure how well it will continue to work. Is it too much to hope that people will wake up even a little bit?
What I keep wondering is why things are so different in Europe. I’m reading Rifkin’s new book, The European Dream that explains the fact that Europeans, by and large, live in a society that is far more equitable and humane than our own. A place where a European Dream is taking shape that is more compelling, and with more promise to deliver than our so called American dream. I don’t know how difficult it would be for our society to emulate theirs (given our Constitutional deficiencies) even if we wanted to, but to my mind, just as our brand of capitalism served as a refutation, of sorts of communism, their collective egalitarianism, if you could call it that, serves as a refutation of our noxious, increasingly neoconservative-driven ideology. Americans, in my opinion, need to become more aware of how good Europeans have it.
The world of men has forever been ruled by empires,
and will always be ruled by empires.
Empires will always fall.