Profiles in “courage”

Many on the political left are angry with the United States House of Representatives for the passage of a truly henious bit of nonsense. In particular, the House Democratic leadership is taking heat for their capitulating and cowardly response to one of the most pressing issues of our time.

I speak of course of this:

Congratulating and recognizing Mr. Juan Antonio Chi-Chi Rodriguez for his continued success on and off the golf course, for his generosity and devotion to charity, and for his exemplary dedication to the intellectual and moral growth of thousands of low-income and disadvantaged youth in our country.

How dare they? Do these people truly have no shame?

Wait, what did you think I was talking about?

Great, Scott

I believe violence is the refuge of those who lack the imagination or wit to resolve problems through negotiation and reason. However, when I read something like this excerpt from former Mouth of Sauron White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s upcoming book:

The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the “liberal media” didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.

–Quote from Mr. McClellan’s book, as cited by Glenn Greenwald

I am forced to reconsider.

So basically, according to Mr. McClellan, the fault lies not with the lies propagated by administration for which he served as a public face, but rather with the failure of the fourth estate to call him and the masters to whom he was a willing lapdog on their blatant lies. While this argument contains a kernel of truth, it obscures a far more basic principle:

Don’t. @#$%ing. Lie. It’s practically a big-C Commandment (depending on whether you choose to construe the prohibition against bearing false withness as a narrow ban on legalistic lying [and it doesn't get more legalistic than the hair-splitting, obfuscation, qualification, and meticulous word choice in which press secretaries regularly engage] or a blanket injunction against lying on general principles). It’s one of the creation myths of our republic (see cherry trees, G. Washington and). It’s something that most parents attempt, with greater or lesser degrees of success, to instill in their children.

If we lived in a remotely sane society, or even just a society where critical thinking was seen as a virtue, Mr. McClellan’s shambling public resurrection trying to peddle the line of nonsense he’s reportedly got going in his new book would be met by an angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks.

[On second thought, the Frankenstein's monster analogy is too kind. In a sane society, Mr. McClellan world be placed in a pillory in the public square, and the parents, partners, and children of all those killed or injured in Iraq, Afghanistan, and New Orleans, and all those who have been otherwise...inconvenienced by this administration and the policies which he daily championed would have the opportunity to walk up to him, spit in his eye, and kick him squarely in the gonads. Hard. While wearing steel toe boots. Spiked steel toe boots. Rusty spiked steel toe boots. Rusty spiked steel toe boots doused with salt, lemon juice, and flaming isopropyl alcohol. And the only relief he should be allowed would be to drink from a plastic water bottle manufactured using BPA.]

Your bosses lied? You knew it, and you did, what, precisely? You repeated their lies, you presented their lies as the truth, you belittled and castigated the people who called you on your lies.

And that’s the truly mind-boggling part; the media you bamboozled, the same cowardly, deferential, docile, and uncritical press you conned? They’re giving you free publicity. Instead of ensuring that you fade from the public eye, and the minds of all but the historians and scholars who relegate you to what you truly are — a minor footnote in a tragic history — they’re promoting you. They’re helping you to sell your book, and to profit from the fraud you helped perpetrate.

So now you get to cash in, pretending all the while that the scales were miraculously lifted from your eyes, you cut-rate Saul of Tarsus? You’re culpable. You’re responsible. And there is no truth you can tell now, no self-serving rationalization you can spit out, no self-justification you can sputter on Larry King or Charlie Rose or for the hometown crowd on Fox News that makes you any less than guilty.

The late Joseph Welch said it best: “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

Spider Kiss, by Harlan Ellison

While many aspects of the world — musical styles, fashion, communications technology, and the patois of youth culture, to name just a few — have changed since Mr. Ellison’s novel was published in 1961, the role of celebrity in popular culture remains constant. Names and faces change. The pace of that change seems faster every year; projected worship has an ever shorter shelf life. However fleeting, fame is a commodity that never goes out of style.

As a result, while specific details of Spider Kiss are a product of their time, the underlying truth applies as much today as it did over forty-five years ago.

The novel presents the story of the rise and fall rock and roll star Stag Preston (a.k.a. Luther Sellers), who achieves fame and finds it the ideal vehicle for acting on his basest instincts. Paralleling this story is the struggle for redemption of his public relations man and enabler Shelly Morgenstern, who helps set Preston loose on the world, and must then try to contain the havoc wrought by his creation.

While they may have been more shocking to a 1961 audience, Stag Preston’s excesses are all too familiar to contemporary readers exposed to a 24-hour news cycle. Sexual excess? Whose video tape do you want to see? Wrecked car? Are you interested in a sports car or an SUV? Celebrities getting away with murder? Seems I’ve seen that happen before.

In a world where the custody battle following the death of a D-list celebrity is mistaken for national news, and where every slurred utterance, desperate cry for attention, and all too public meltdown of an idol for whom the spotlight has drifted a bit too far off center is dissected in print, television, and online in real time, Stag Preston seems simultaneously common and quaint.

Regardless of the time or the individual, fame has less to do with talent than with packaging. It’s about finding a vehicle that can bear up (for however long) under the spotlight, and promoting that individual in a way that enables — even commands — an investment of attention from the faithful just looking for the next focus for their devotion. In such a marketplace, the most one can do is try to limit the damage when the star burns out.

“Stand back! I have powers! Political powers!”

I attended a Democratic Party political rally on Friday night. Strong remarks from Senator Kerry got things going.

My state representative offered a reasoned endorsement of Senator Clinton’s candidacy; he believes she has the ability and the knowledge to do the job*.

The gentlemen who spoke up for Senator Edwards offered a game but lifeless explanation of why he supports the candidate. The most charitable thing I can say about his endorsement is that it was marginally less damaging than having no one speak up for the candidate.

Any notion I had of giving my vote to Representative Kucinich during the primary was severely jeopardized by the gentleman who advocated for him. He took the stage with his little bound copy of the Constitution, and proceeded to explain to all us poor benighted poseur progressives the importance of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You know, phrasing that doesn’t appear anywhere in the the Constitution. Patronizing schtick is never going to get very far with me, and you lose all credibility when you @#$% up basic references.**

Finally, our state senator offered a powerful endorsement for Senator Obama. Despite his passion, and the passion evident among all of Senator Obama’s assembled supporters, I remain unconvinced. When you get past the candidate’s emotional appeal, I haven’t heard a satisfactory answer to the “Yes, and then what?” part of the Obama equation.

I went into the event with an open mind, and no clear favorite. I left the same way.

*If media coverage to date is any indicator, these qualities don’t seem to be playing much of a role in the campaign.

**This should go without saying, but it won’t, so let me be clear: this is a statement against the ineptitude of Congressman Kucinich’s proxy, and not against Mr. Kucinich, his candidacy, or his positions, except to the degree that the latter inspire the former.

You Can Lead a Politician to Water But You Can’t Make Him Think: Ten Commandments for Texas Politics, by Kinky Friedman

Mr. Friedman ran as an independent candidate for governor of Texas in 2006. The book tells the story of his unsuccessful bid to unseat incumbent governor Rick Perry (a defeat he attributes in large part to too little money, too much voter apathy, and the hammerlock dominance of the Republican and Democratic parties on the Texas [and American] political system). It also serves as a reiteration of the principles on which he ran: common sense (in Mr. Friedman’s world view) and no-nonsense ideas for (among other things) education, immigration, and electoral reform.

Are his ideas realistic? Probably not given the entrenched interest that would be affected. On the other hand, he is addressing problems that need solutions, and his ideas are no crazier, or less practical, than any others put forward.

I don’t understand

I borrowed the following text from CNN, but the story originated with the Associated Press and was widely reported today:

One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday.

Not one book? In a year? Really? That right there? My definition of hell.

I freely admit that I’m obsessive-compulsive about reading. When it comes to books, if I’m not working on at least three of them at the same time, I begin to feel deeply uncomfortable. On the rare occasions when I hit a dry spell, and I’m spinning my wheels starting and stopping book after book without being able to make any headway, I feel out of balance. When that happens, I usually just (re)prime the pump by going back to reread a favorite book, and that gets me out of my slump. But to go a whole year and never read a book? That’s a wholly alien concept to me.